


Odwilż (The Thaw)

by picaselle



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: AU, M/M, Magical Realism, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-08
Updated: 2014-11-08
Packaged: 2018-02-24 15:07:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2585894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/picaselle/pseuds/picaselle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luhan lives a thousand times, searching for the meaning of the never-ending circle that he's stuck in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Odwilż (The Thaw)

**Author's Note:**

> For archiving purposes. Originally posted on livejournal on 29.12.2012.

Sometimes it takes a few seconds, sometimes even days. It’s all a blur in his head - too many years, places, people, things he just cannot connect. There was a starting point and a reason, he knows that much. It didn’t happen because someone snapped their fingers or because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s probably his fault. No. It definitely is his fault. He can remember the feeling of despair as clearly as if it had happened yesterday. He wanted to get away. He took a few steps too many and tumbled down faster and faster until he crashed. It hurt like nothing had ever hurt before. His bones broke and crumbled and got scattered around. There was blood everywhere, probably, most likely, though he’s not sure now. He couldn’t move but the ground felt too sticky for it to be soil. The roaring in his ears made him dizzy and all he wanted was for it all to just end right there. He closed his eyes and tried to pray, while his fingers trembled and his heartbeat slowed down. Then, as if a curtain fell, everything cut off. When he opened his eyes a few seconds later, he was somewhere he had never been before.

*

Sehun is officially fed up with life. He couldn’t agree more with the saying that life is long and grey and shitty, just like toilet paper. What’s more, he thinks that submitting a huge canvas with toilet paper glued to it at random might actually become the masterpiece he has always longed to create. The depth, the contrast, the social critique, it would have it all. He can bet that even Jongin would agree. After all, his flatmate always tells him how boring his works are and how he should let his inner creativity out.

He stares at the canvas for so long that the paint on his palette hardens and the hand with which he’s holding his brush becomes numb. He has less than a week to finish the end of term work. He has spent almost a week already doing it. However, the half-completed painting of a sunset on a beach looks so offending to him that he grabs the bottle of turpentine from the nearest table and throws it at the painting with all his might. The sound of glass breaking and scattering in all directions is deafening, and he barely manages to get out of the way of a particularly big shard of glass. The solvent trickles down onto the floor and the smell becomes overbearing. Sehun can feel a headache coming and how is he even going to clean this and why did he do this and what if Jongin comes home before he’s done cleaning and-

He opens the window in the living room and shamelessly vomits onto the pavement from the third floor. As luck seems to finally be on his side, he manages to water all of the plants that his neighbour from the floor below keeps on the window sill in the process. Sehun almost feels like high five-ing himself and suddenly cleaning the vile mess he made seems a bit more fun.

 

Jongin stops in the door to the living room and silently stares at him lying on the floor next to a considerably big trash bag. One of his eyebrows seems to be twitching and Sehun can’t decide if it’s the moment to run away yet. However, all Jongin does in the end is sigh dramatically and push Sehun out of the flat. He throws the thrash bag at him just before slamming the door shut. Sehun deems it all to be a good omen and sets onto the epic garbage adventure with a smile. 

He’s going back to the flat when he hears the screech of the tires of a car. It’s followed by a thud and the most chilling sound of bones breaking that he’s ever heard. He stops in his tracks and looks at the pavement with his mouth hanging open. It’s definitely not every day that a horribly disfigured body lands at his feet or his shoes get sprinkled by blood. He promptly vomits the second time.

 

He has no idea why he needs to go to the police station. Yes, he was a random spectator of the drama that was the hit-and-run. Yes, he saw the car. But no, he has no idea what its license plate was or what the driver looked like. And no, he definitely doesn’t know the victim and please just stop making him look at the carcass. 

When Sehun gets a moment alone in the empty corridor of the police station, he takes a deep breath, counts to ten and pinches himself. Still, he doesn’t suddenly find himself back home. The walls around him are plain and boring, and he has the face of the victim memorized. 

 

He fails the painting course spectacularly enough for it to go down in his university’s history. Even Kris, whose artistic side doesn’t exist in any universe and who ended up taking the course by mistake, manages to pass. Sehun almost feels like crying because this is just too humiliating. He can't even begin to fathom how he’s going to avoid his parents’ phone calls today. They wished for him to study something proper, like medicine or law. Him persuading them to let him major in arts was a miracle and such miracles should be treasured, not destroyed. 

“Stop looking at me like you’re a puppy that just got kicked,” Jongin grumbles and plugs the telephone cable back in for the hundredth time. “Yes, you did fail that course but for fuck’s sake it’s not even a whole unit. Just take something extra next term and make up for it.”

Sehun successfully manages to tear up and pouts. “But-but I can’t lie to my parents.”

All Jongin can do in response is start laughing because Sehun is the type of a person who will do anything to get his way. Lying has never been a big deal and ever since Jongin can remember his annoying friend has been lying to his parents if the situation required him to do so. “Why are you saying such nonsense?”

Sehun shifts uncomfortably on the floor and Jongin narrows his eyes. “What did you do?”

“Nothing?”

“Stop shitting me.”

“Well...I...uhm...I told them that my average mark’s a first,” Sehun mumbles more to himself than Jongin. It’s nice of Jongin to take interest in his horrible life but right now nothing and no one can save him from having his money source cut off.

“This is almost worth a slow clap. Just find a different subject next term and pass it well enough to get a first. I have no sympathy for you.”

Sehun starts moving slowly but surely towards the phone socket.

“And no, you can’t unplug the phone!”

 

He gets a phone call some half an hour later. He lies but it backfires on him anyway. He knew it would. And thus not only is he short of half a unit, he also has no money. Life being like toilet paper? Yes and to the power of infinity. 

 

He’s walking to the job interview when someone bumps into him. Sehun loses his balance and lands on the pavement hard. The stranger apologizes to him profoundly and then excuses himself because he’s running late. Sehun is unable to utter even a word during the whole incident for the stranger’s face is eerily familiar, as it’s a face he swore he would never forget.

*

When he tries, he’s able to remember the second time as well. It wasn’t particularly noteworthy. It wasn’t even that painful or long. It seemed like a dream at that point - surreal, happening as if in slow-motion, with colours faded and no second plan.

He opened his eyes and discovered that he was lying on a mattress in the middle of a sea, or maybe an ocean. Water was everywhere beneath him. Above him there was only a vast blue sky. He was alone, so alone that he couldn’t even hear the sound of fish swimming or birds singing. There was only him, the mattress, the sea and the sky. 

He fell asleep soon afterwards as the gentle waves performed the most effective lullaby. His sleep was deep and dreamless until suddenly he was flying and then plunging towards the ground like a stone, his wings trying to move but only managing to wriggle grotesquely. 

He woke up underwater. His lungs were constricting painfully, trying to get the excessive water out of his system. His legs and arms felt heavy, almost like lead. When he looked up, he saw the dark shadow of the mattress looming far above him, getting smaller with each watery breath he took. Smaller and smaller as his vision turned more and more black. Then, once again everything abruptly stopped.

*

Sehun is still in a state of shock. Not because of the stranger he encountered earlier but rather because he got the job. It’s an utter mystery how it happened. During the interview he was so out of it that he felt as if he were having an out-of-body experience. He’s sure that Jongin would have something to say about this small miracle, something along the lines of: “Sehun, we all know that you’re the smartest when you don’t think”. Not that Sehun disagrees. After all, he’s prone to over-thinking which usually results in him brooding and shooting death glares at anyone who’s nearby.

There’s one incident connected to Sehun’s over-thinking that haunts him even now, although it happened a good few years ago. It haunts him, for it is Jongin’s favourite let’s-break-the-ice story. His flatmate uses it almost at every party and very effectively at that. Sehun can’t comprehend why it works. For him, it isn’t funny at all.

They weren’t classmates at that time but still shared the biology class. One uneventful day, while Sehun was minding his own business and diligently taking notes, the teacher suddenly stopped talking and looked straight at him. Sehun raised an eyebrow. The teacher raised an eyebrow. The whole class turned around to stare as well. A dramatic silence ensued. 

“Sehun, are you planning how to kill me?” asked the teacher seriously.

“What, why?!” answered Sehun.

“Because you keep staring at me with killing intent written all over your face. I don’t think I’m going to be able to continue teaching this class at this rate.”

Sehun couldn’t have been happier when he graduated. Finally people were going to stop making jokes about his facial expressions. Boy was he wrong.

 

Jongin needs to only take one look at him to know. “You got the job. Lord help us all, you’re actually smiling. Sehun, it’s creepy. Please stop.”

*

After the second time, he’s not sure about anything anymore. He visited various places, did sometimes completely outrageous things and then died. It’s not always the work of deus ex machina. More often than not, he gives up on his new lives himself. There’s always a void somewhere inside him. It’s a dark place, a place packed with resignation, emptiness and yearning for something more that he clearly can’t have.

Sometimes he feels like his existence could be defined as a big, black and white clock with its arms spinning in opposite directions. Spinning so fast that one can’t read the time. Spinning and spinning until they blur and become one. At the times when he feels like this, he wishes that the clock would stop and turn back. Whatever happened in the past, he’s sure that his first life was better than the infinite forgettable lives he leads now.

*

It’s Sehun’s second week working as a waiter at a cosy little Thai restaurant close to his uni (or as Kyungsoo once said during that boring The Theory of Art class, “Do you mean that over-priced den that serves pseudo-Thai food which tastes like a 5-year-old cooked it?”). So far it's been a relatively easy ride. So far.

“I see the bitchface’s made its glorious return. I think you’re going to get a hell lot of tips today,” says Jongin and wiggles his eyebrows at him.

“Shut it,” Sehun growls and goes back to fanning himself. “It isn’t humanly possible to survive this weather.”

“Well if you hadn’t failed the easiest class our uni offers...”

Sehun judges the distance between them and throws the fan right at Jongin’s face. “God damn it, stop talking about it already and give me back the fan. It’s too hot.”

His flatmate laughs, grabs the fan and unceremoniously leaves the living room. “Whatever. I’m going to uni. Have fun dying in that over-priced, chilli-smelling den.”

 

He experiences a whole new dimension of hell once he’s outside. There’s not even a small cloud to be spotted, the humidity’s level is trying to break the Guinness record and the sun is so strong that it literally burns. Sehun furrows his eyebrows in distaste and quickly walks into the tube station. It’s at times like these that he wishes it was socially acceptable for men to carry sun umbrellas with them. He’s certain that one more week of such weather and he will turn bright red. He’s hoping for some cool air inside of the station but instead is met with a wall of sweaty people who bump into him painfully every time the train stops. By the end of the journey he’s aching and soaking wet.

 

He’s muttering the most colourful curses under his breath on the way from the tube station to his work place, when he suddenly looks up at the skyscraper on his left. What follows is a lot of noise, people running around, someone shouting and a lot of blood on Sehun’s now-not-white shirt.

He spends a good ten minutes staring vacantly into space before he realizes that the street is swarming with police, and god only knows why, two ambulances and an arsenal of paramedics. Last time Sehun had looked down at his feet, only one person had died. 

Once he looks around more closely, he notices a policeman literally drilling a hole in Sehun’s face. The moment the other catches Sehun staring, he smiles so brightly that Sehun instantly takes a few steps back. One shouldn’t have such a happy expression after looking at a dead body. It’s not right. Although Sehun thinks he has no right to judge, since he’s positive that the dead stranger is the same person he saw getting hit by a car and bumped into not that long ago. Clearly the heat must be getting to every one's mind.

He’s in the process of an intense frowning session when the overly happy policeman comes up to him. His smile is even more vibrant from up close and Sehun thinks that this might end in a headache.

“I know this can’t be pleasant but could you give me your contact details in case this turns into a proper investigation. We don’t need to go to the police station. Just get into my car and I’ll drop you off as well.”

Sehun can’t help but feel suspicious because what is this “get into my car” line. What if he gets murdered because all those accidents seem like such a dark foreshadowing but he’s too young to die and why can’t someone save him, god please have mercy, there are too many uni courses he still needs to fail. He mentally makes the sign of the cross, but nods in agreement and follows the policeman into the patrol car.

When they arrive before the entrance to Sehun’s block, he gathers all of his courage and blurts, “Uhm...well...I...erhm...Can you give me the name of the victim and his address? I know it sounds completely ridiculous but it’s important to me.” He finishes spouting the last sentence express speed and guesses it was facepalm-worthy. However, the policeman turns around to face him and excitedly says, “But of course. I can understand this. I’ll call you once we identify him.”

 

Jongin starts laughing hysterically after Sehun is done reporting how his ridiculous day went (and conveniently not mentioning his bizarre request).

“Creepy smile or not, that policeman was definitely hitting on you, you dimwit. Just wait until he calls and asks you to come to the police station to meet him face to face. Make sure not to go inside any empty rooms with him.”

“No way. He wasn’t hitting on me. You always think about one thing. Pervert.”

Jongin raises his eyebrow and stares at his friend accusingly. “Pervert? Tsk, I’m just looking out for you, mate. Gotta guard that virginity well.”

“I’m not a virgin,” mutters Sehun but blushes bright red.

“Sure. Whatever you say.”

*

It’s all a blur he wants to get away from, a blur he detests. Still, every now and then he finds himself in a unique place. Every now and then he feels the will to live crawl back into his system, make his blood flow quicker and the days pass by faster. Just like that one time when he found himself in China in the middle of a bustling road.

 

He blinks and the world comes to a still. The shadows spinning before his eyes transform into people and buildings. The ground stops to shake. He takes a deep breath and looks around. The people have slanted eyes and long, long black braids. Somehow the surroundings seem familiar. He guesses he must have seen this place on photographs sometime in the past. His lives do not connect in a straight line, they aren’t a neat loop. Instead, they turn and spin and overlap. Hence, he wouldn’t be surprised if he went back in time.

Before he can even finish this trail of thoughts, someone grabs his arm and tells him to follow. He’s too shocked to say no. The stranger is no different from all the other people around, except he walks fast and seems strangely determined. 

They enter a labyrinth of narrow streets and a never-ending series of water canals. It’s only when they stop in front of a considerably big house that the stranger lets go of his arm. He turns back and looks closely at Luhan. They stand still in a complete silence for what seems like ages before the stranger finally speaks up. 

“Do you want to get yourself killed?”

Luhan blinks and opens his mouth but no words come out. 

“You don’t have a queue.”

“A queue?”

“Yes, your hair is short and you’re even wearing western clothes. Are you a foreigner?”

He looks down at himself automatically and notices that he’s indeed wearing a suit. 

“I’m not sure what exactly happened to me,” Luhan mutters while looking at his feet.

“Hmm...it seems like you’ve lost your memory. It’d do you no good to wander the city looking like this. Before the sunset sets, you’d be beheaded. It’s a crime to not have the queue, especially if you look like a local and face-wise you do.”

Luhan can feel his hands get sweaty the longer the stranger talks. He has no idea how he looks right now, but his heartbeat’s speeding up and he can hear blood ringing in his ears. The stranger seems to notice this and takes a step closer to Luhan as if he were trying to calm him down.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell on you. I’m Yixing.”

And that is how Luhan finds a new home and a surprisingly good friend.

 

He holes himself in the living room one day when everyone is away. There’s a big, richly decorated western-style mirror on one of its walls. It’s cleaned twice a day and sparkles in the sun like a diamond. Yixing’s father deems it the most beautiful object he’s ever acquired and makes sure to keep people away from it. Luhan isn’t surprised because even he, who has lived for so long and been to so many different places, finds it absolutely captivating. He sits down before it and hesitantly looks at his own reflection.

It’s the first time that his hair is black. It’s much shorter than the hair of everyone else he has seen so far. Still, in the past two weeks that he’s lived with Yixing it got long enough to brush against his shoulders. He’s pretty sure that soon he’ll be able to finally get some sort of a braid. It hasn’t been that long but he yearns to go outside.

His eyes are more slanted than usual as well. He can recognize his face all right but now that he can see it properly, he understands why Yixing thought he was a local. With the right clothes and hairstyle, he would be able to blend in without problems. It unnerves him a bit to find himself so changed. On the other hand though, he can’t help but think that maybe this is what he needed all the time - a life that differs utterly from any of his past ones. 

 

Yixing is a writer but more importantly he’s the son of the richest merchant in Canton. His family owns a huge traditional house in one of the main parts of the city. It’s so big once one goes inside it that Luhan manages to live there without anyone other than the servants ever noticing him. They don’t ask uncomfortable questions and act as if he didn’t exist.

To Luhan, it seems like most of the time his friend hovers between reality and some sort of an intoxicating dream. However, when it comes to filial piety, he’s serious. So serious in fact that at the age of 16 he manages to pass the official exam and lands a job that skyrockets his family’s position. Knowing that his father wants him to go as far as he can, he hides his love for novels as well. Writing is Yixing’s biggest and highly treasured secret even though it isn’t his only one. 

 

It’s on a lazy summer afternoon that Luhan discovers the reason behind Yixing’s vacant stares and dreamy smiles. They’re alone in the house and Yixing spends the whole morning unusually agitated. He leaves in the early afternoon and comes back an hour later with a small bag. By that time his fingers are twitching and his breath is a bit too fast for Luhan’s liking. He doesn’t question his friend though, and follows him silently deep inside the house. They enter a big spacious room with a few sofas and a round, black table. Yixing sighs in relief and plops onto the nearest sofa. Then, he empties the contents of the bag onto a small plate which form a pile of tiny, pea-sized, dark pills.

“It’s chan du,” says Yixing with a big smile plastered onto his face.

“What?”

“You know, opium. Let me show you. It’s amazing,” he replies and moves towards a den Luhan hasn’t noticed before. Then, he dries a pill over a small flame of a spirit lamp. He picks up a pipe from the table with one hand. The other one he uses to hold a long needle and impale the pill with it. Carefully, he puts it into the bowl at the end of the pipe and immediately Luhan can smell something sweet and kind of musky, with a flowery undertone. After holding the bowl over the spirit lamp for a bit more, Yixing passes him the pipe.

“Try smoking it.”

He hesitates for a moment but takes the pipe anyway and inhales the opium fumes through it. Even though the taste is bitter and at first he feels nauseated, Luhan takes a breath after another until the fumes stop. He can feel himself getting drowsy and moves towards the sofa. The moment he lies down, the world starts to float and a giggle escapes his lips. Yixing is looking at him with a smile that seems so amazingly pretty all of a sudden and he notices that his friend has this cute dimple and why is everything so warm and cosy and what are those butterflies painted on the ceiling doing flying from one wall to another-

He isn’t sure how much they have smoked when Yixing decides to invade his personal space. Not that he minds much, for Yixing smells so nice, like his favourite candy from his first life. And then they are kissing and Luhan moves on top of Yixing. Suddenly, he wants Yixing more than anything. His lips tingle and his friend’s fingers burn a trail into his arms. Astonishingly, Luhan feels alive.

 

The next time they are alone and Yixing starts impatiently drumming his fingers against the arm chair, Luhan can feel a rush of excitement. Ever since he tried opium everything has been irritatingly blasé. The world has been too still and the colours too washed out. He’s not surprised at his friend’s love for writing anymore. If he could, he would escape the dull reality the same way.

The moment his lips touch the pipe, his vision sets itself ablaze. He starts laughing maniacally and Yixing joins him in lying on the floor. He whispers something about the room being filled with pink unicorns but all Luhan can make himself care about is Yixing’s hot breath tickling his neck.

 

It’s a month or maybe two later that his vision starts getting blurred regularly and thinking about anything for longer induces a horrible migraine. There are days which Luhan spends lying on the floor with his skin itching and stomach contracting in the most bizarre ways. Even so, it all appears so full of meaning to him - all the days that blend one into another, decorated by the sickeningly sweet smell of flowers, dreamy smiles and sex.

When he thinks about it now, he knows he ought to have noticed, for all the signs were so obviously there. Him, breaking into pieces like a shattered mirror with shards glued back recklessly, all chipped and ill-fitted. And Yixing, with his increasingly twitching fingers and eerily empty eyes. However, the world he saw was one filled with fog and hidden behind a veil. And so they became like moths flying towards a treacherous flame. As always, Luhan was the first one to burn.

*

Sehun obsesses over the mysterious stranger for two long weeks. Even Kyungsoo and Junmyeon, who only share one class with him, start looking at him strangely. Jongin is of course much less subtle. He regularly asks Sehun if he’s mental and assures him that, if need be, Jongin knows all the best institutions.

He can’t help it. Every time he lets his thoughts run free, they naturally turn towards the stranger. He has become a permanent fixture in Sehun’s life, an annoying but also a curiously welcome one. He’s certain that if Jongin knew the whole story, he would just tell Sehun that this is a clear sign that his life is really boring. Sehun would concur. 

And so it takes two weeks for the creepy policeman to call. The conversation starts with the other apologizing for taking so long and then asking Sehun to come over to the police station. Sehun can vaguely recall what Jongin told him and all possible alarms go off in his head.

“I’m at work right now and will be pretty busy for the next month so could you please just tell me everything on the phone,” he says and looks at Jongin who is currently rolling from one side of the sofa to the other, laughing hysterically. Once his flatmate manages to contain himself, he stage whispers, “Work, huh? Nice. I’d like to work at home too.”

The policeman doesn’t sound too happy but in the end dictates the dead stranger’s name and address. Sehun notes it down with trembling fingers and then hastily says good bye.

“What was that about?”

“Huh?” 

“There’s something you haven’t told me.”

“No?” Sehun tries to feign innocence but Jongin is having none of it. “That wasn’t a question, you dimwit. What is it you’re not telling me? And bloody hell, stop making that constipated face.”

Sehun bites his lower lip and focuses his gaze on the wall behind Jongin. On one hand, all he wants is to talk with someone about the ridiculous predicament that he’s found himself in. He has bottled everything up inside and at times he feels as if his mind is bursting at the seams. On the other hand, even he finds the whole thing absolutely absurd and that doesn’t encourage him to share.

“Whatever. Do what you want but if you end up in a tight spot, don’t come crying to me,” Jongin huffs and rolls his eyes ostentatiously before leaving the living room. Sehun looks at him go without a word. Once he hears the sound of door closing, he lets out a breath he didn’t realize he’s been holding and walks quickly to his own room. He switches on his laptop and waits for it to start, while tightening his fingers around the piece of paper on which he wrote the stranger’s address.

 

He looks around curiously. From what he can remember, he’s been to this part of the city only once before. The buildings look old but expensive; most of them white, with big windows and perfectly trimmed grass in front. It doesn’t take more than spotting a Mercedes and an Aston Martin on the street for Sehun to begin feeling out of place. Money has never been a problem in his family but this kind of money is something he can’t even begin to imagine having. 

The stranger, or rather Luhan, used to live in one of the smaller houses. Still, it’s pristine white and its porch is a piece of art. Sehun swallows hard and rings the doorbell. What follows is absolute silence, broken only by the sound of the wind and cars driving by. He’s not sure what else he expected but nevertheless he’s a bit disappointed. Against all odds, he was hoping for this visit to lift some of the weight off his mind.

His musings are interrupted by a female voice. “Are you here to see Luhan?”

He turns around with a jolt and notices a woman, probably in her early thirties, standing in front of the porch. 

“Y-Yes,” he stutters and wills his heart to stop beating so frantically.

“I’m afraid he died in an accident around two weeks ago.”

“Is that so? I guess there’s nothing for me to do here,” he lets out a nervous laugh. The woman lifts an eyebrow but says nothing in return. Sehun feels his palms sweating. He excuses himself and the moment he turns the corner, starts running towards the nearest tube station.

*

He dies again. It’s uneventful and quick. He barely manages to open his eyes before something hits him hard enough to send him flying. He lands on the ground a few seconds later and groans in pain. He can feel someone standing nearby but is unable to do anything but lie motionlessly and desperately try to take gulps of breath.

The next thing he knows, he’s standing in front of a white, expensive-looking house, holding a set of keys. He unlocks the door almost as if he were on autopilot and takes off his jacket. He’s not sure where he is or who exactly he is supposed to be. He knows though that he’ll find out soon enough. 

It’s rather fast this time. Luhan settles comfortably into his new life in a matter of hours. He’s a lawyer, working for one of the best law firms in the country. He’s also extremely dedicated to his job, to the point that when an important case needs to be handled he has no problems with staying at the office overnight. Even on the normal days he wakes up early in the morning and comes back home long after the sun has set. Still, he’s somehow content with this monotonous, orderly life. That is, until one day he wakes up and realizes he overslept. He quickly dresses up and tries to beat the horrible traffic by taking a taxi. Halfway, he gives up and decides to walk. He’s a mere five minutes away from the office when he bumps into someone. The boy falls onto the pavement and groans. He has half a mind to apologize before he sets off running on pure adrenaline, with his vision blurring and heart clenching. Luhan may forget most of what had happened in his past lives but if there’s one thing he is sure about, it’s that he knows the boy quite well.

*

It follows naturally that Sehun becomes even more distracted than he already was. Kyungsoo and Junmyeon have now joined Jongin in expressing their oh-so-dramatic concerns. Sehun really wishes that The Theory of Art class didn’t exist but for some reason it’s the only class that everyone who attends his uni absolutely has to take (and it lasts a whole year, to boot). Thus, every week for two hours he’s stuck with his overly paranoid friends and practices the art of blocking out what people say. It’s either that, or he will start punching people during class. Consequently, when he’s finally told that he can indeed take an additional class to make up for his failed half unit two weeks into the new term, he feels relieved. The less time he has to mull over Luhan, the more of his sanity can he preserve.

He becomes less enthusiastic when faced with a list of courses he can choose from. A good 90% of them are theoretical and even more ridiculous than “The changing portrayal of human body in art”. As interesting as that course sounded, Sehun slept through most of it without shame and still managed to pass really well by writing an essay that Jongin promptly nominated for his personal most-convincing-bullshit-of-the-year award. 

In the end, having to choose the lesser evil, Sehun settles for a contemporary dance class even though his dancing skills are pretty much non-existent. In result, he also makes Jongin’s day.

“A dance class? Are you sure that was the best choice?” his flatmate snorts, while Kyungsoo smirks at him from across the table. Sehun sighs and tries to wrap his mind around why he thought that having lunch with them was a good idea.

“Yes, a dance class. All I’m gonna be graded on is my attendance and a short dance performance. I say, that’s easy.”

His two friends share a knowing look before Kyungsoo retorts: “Sehun, you’ll still need to learn how to dance well if you want a good grade. Besides, it’s a dance performance we’re talking about here. A dance performance in front of, at least, your whole class.”

Sehun tries to imagine doing that and only manages to choke on his coffee. Jongin starts laughing openly now. “You forgot about that small detail, huh? Good luck mate.”

*

There’s another life that he cannot forget. It wormed itself beneath his skin and entangled with his veins. He tried to be more careful than last time but life will never stop for you just because you want to go slow. He tried but in the end he let the current take him away.

Before he realizes what is happening, a handsome, tall stranger hugs him warmly and ushers inside his house. He calls Luhan Shishi and somehow it sounds so right that a few minutes later Luhan isn’t sure what his previous name was anymore. He feels close to the man, as if they have known each other their whole lives. 

It takes two days for Shishi to regain the memories he knows he shouldn’t have. This time he’s a poet and a rather famous one. People say that he’s ahead of his times and praise him for his ability to mix the traditional with the modern. Everything he writes is full of melancholy and longing. He figures that maybe that is how he should have been dealing with the inherent sadness that he’s felt all along. The moment his pen touches paper, it’s as if a lid opened and feelings pour out through his fingers forming words. He has no control over anything, his poetry breathes on its own. 

The tall man’s name turns out to be Yomishihisa no Fujiwara, although Shishi affectionately calls him Hisa. He’s an oligarch and acts as the Minister of War in the Cabinet. He’s serious and formal and wears his uniform even inside his own house. Basically, he was born to be a government official (although he seems to hate the Navy General with a passion that rivals the power of the strongest sun and complains even in his sleep about how the Taisho Emperor is horribly feeble-minded and can Prince Hirohito grow up faster and replace him for god’s sake). He and Shishi are childhood friends. 

Shishi finds his friend’s seriousness to be over the top more often than not (his wardrobe contains an arsenal of neatly folded copies of his military uniform, for crying out loud). Nevertheless, it gives him a sense of security that he has never experienced before. Hisa is so different from Yixing, but Shishi can’t help but be drawn to him. He finds himself staring at Hisa’s majestic eyebrows and perfectly chiselled face. It really doesn’t hurt that he looks amazing in his uniform either. Shishi thinks that maybe he could try the thing called love again.

 

It’s a warm spring night and he decides to go sit on the veranda that’s located inside of the house, and encloses one of the most beautiful traditional gardens that he has ever seen. The bushes are perfectly trimmed, the stones white-grey and forming orderly patterns on the ground. He’s passing by Hisa’s room when he hears muffled voices. He stops and moves as silently as he can towards the paper screen that was left slightly open. It takes all of his self-control not to gasp. There’s Yixing sitting next to Hisa, smiling that gentle smile of his that seems to light up the whole room. When Hisa leans a bit too close to Yixing, Shishi turns around and walks away with his heart beating so fast it’s threatening to burst from inside his ribcage. It hurts just like the first time he died, except his bones are intact and there’s no blood.

The next day, he’s introduced to Yixing, who’s in fact called Rei. Rei is a koto player and while he has Yixing’s face and his gentleness, he’s much more quiet and much more there. Gone are the dreamy smiles and empty gazes. Shishi smiles and bows politely but leaves Hisa and Rei alone as fast as he can. There are too many painful memories that resurface, and Hisa’s loving gaze sets his nerves on fire in the most aggravating way.

 

He turns to writing in order to escape and despair proves to be the best inspiration a poet can have. The images appear in his head without warning and disappear just as unexpectedly the moment he tries to form a verse. It is a flood, an avalanche, a wildfire spreading with the wind. Still, even though he imprints each and every one of his emotions on paper, they remain inside him, boiling and threatening to rip him apart. He can feel himself hurting and remembers the sadness that dominated his world when he took his life for the first time. 

 

It’s still dark outside, almost an hour before the sun will begin to rise, when he goes out of his room to have breakfast. He hasn’t been sleeping too well lately. The moment he lies down on the bed, his mind is assaulted by a storm of thoughts that rarely have anything in common. It seems as if his sanity were crumbling. It’s not even Hisa’s fault anymore, he just can’t focus on anything. Sometimes he feels as if his life had no direction and it scares him. 

He’s exhausted and the corridor he’s going through appears to be floating. He halts and rubs at his eyes. Then, he takes a few more steps towards the stairs but freezes when he sees Hisa walking towards the back of the house with a boy that Shishi has never seen before. He hides in the darkness and stares at them unabashedly. The boy looks to be a bit younger than him. His face has a serious expression on it that could probably rival Hisa’s. He’s beautiful, so beautiful in fact that, as cliché as it sounds, for a second Shishi feels his heart stop. It picks up again, moving his blood around dutifully when the boy disappears from his sight. Nevertheless, all he can think about during breakfast is the boy’s dark eyes and smooth skin.

 

He manages to corner Hisa late in the evening when the other retreats to the library. It’s a part of Hisa’s routine. Shishi has no idea what his friend does there but every evening he shuts himself in the library for at least three hours. He knows that Hisa hates to be interrupted but at this point he doesn’t care.

Hisa looks up from the book he’s been reading the moment Shishi opens the library door and asks quietly, “What are you doing here?” Shishi can hear the anger half-heartedly hidden in his voice. Still, he closes the door behind him and sits down on a chair next to Hisa.

“I’ve asked you what you’re doing here.”

“I know.”

“Well then?” Hisa’s left eyebrow starts to twitch and Shishi can barely contain his laugh. He straightens his back and says, “Who was that boy you brought home today?”

“You saw him?” Hisa utters and suddenly looks kind of scared. 

“Of course I did. Why? Was him being here supposed to be a secret?”

“No. Nothing like that. He’s a son of an important friend of my father’s. He came to study literature in Todai, although I’ve been told he’s also a painter.” 

“Uh-huh. And what is he doing staying here?” Shishi really feels like laughing because Hisa looks so desperate, trying to find the right words to make Shishi leave him in peace.

“I decided to let him stay in the winter pavilion. No one’s been using it since my mother died and the house is too big for me, even with you around, anyway.”

Shishi stares at Hisa’s twitching eyebrow the whole time the other talks. It’s pretty much a giveaway. He doesn’t need any more clues to know what might be going on.

“Sure. That’s definitely what you’d do. Stop lying. You’re really bad at it.”

“Well…uhm…he..,” Hisa tries to come up with something persuasive but in the end only sighs. “Oh, fuck it. I will tell you but keep it a secret. The boy’s name is Sehun and his father is the leader of one of the anti-Japanese groups in Korea. My father owed him a favour and so he asked me to take the boy to Japan in order to keep him safe. I didn’t like the idea much but I can’t disobey father.”

A heavy silence settles upon them. Shishi stares wordlessly at his fingers while he tries to come to terms with what he’s just heard. He didn’t expect to be told something so serious. For a split second he thinks it might have been better if he never asked.

“You got yourself into a dangerous mess. You could lose your life if the boy does something stupid.”

“I know that. He’s fluent in Japanese and smart enough to get into Todai though, so I’m hoping he’s also smart enough to stay out of trouble.”

Shishi forces himself to laugh. “So what kind of a Japanese name did you give him? Is the character for “se” in his name the same one as “se” in “sekai” and “hun” the same one as “kun” in “kunshou”?”

“Well, you could say that.” 

“Then, Sekun?” Shishi giggles. “Or did you try to come up with something more creative?”

“It’s Yoshihiro,” Hisa says, resigned. Still, Shishi can see that he looks a bit less worried and feels the tension begin to ease up. 

 

He takes to calling the beautiful boy by his Korean name in his head. They don’t see each other too often. When they are introduced to each other, it’s painfully short and to the point. It seems that Hisa is still paranoid. Why exactly, Shishi doesn’t know. The last thing on his mind would be to go to the police to report who Sehun really is.

It doesn’t stop him from stealing glances at the boy whenever he can. He’s graceful and appears to be calm and collected, albeit Shishi quickly begins to notice the commotion of emotions that Sehun carries under his carefully structured façade. Sometimes the boy looks back at him. Still, he seems bashful, averting his gaze as quickly as possible and walking away. Shishi wishes he could find a way to talk to him. He’s fascinated by Sehun, so fascinated that he barely spares Hisa any thought anymore. However, most of the time when the boy is in the same room as him, Hisa is nearby and unconsciously throwing disapproving glances Shishi’s way.

 

He knows he shouldn’t do this. It’s a stupid idea. It really is. Not that he ever listens to his inner voice of reason. If he can’t get to know Sehun better in a normal way, he has to resort to slightly more drastic measures.

It’s noon and everyone but the servants are out. Shishi walks quietly towards the back of the house and slides the paper screen of the winter pavilion open. He looks slowly inside, his stomach full of invisible, restless butterflies. There appears to be no one around so he steps inside with confidence. 

The place is just as he remembers it being when Hisa’s mother was still alive. The main room is rather empty but each piece of furniture in it is beautifully made, and seems to be in exactly the right place. He’s unable to locate anything that might belong to Sehun and figures that the boy probably occupies the smaller room. Once he enters it, he’s flabbergasted. There’s a bed, a tiny writing desk and a washbasin. Other than that, the room is covered with paintings of all sizes. They lie on the floor, are hanging off a lone chair standing in a corner and are even scattered across the bed. They don’t share a common theme. It seems that Sehun paints whatever comes to his mind. Shishi has to admit that the paintings, with their precise strokes and explosion of colours, are even more breathtaking than Sehun himself. 

He’s looking through the paintings, mesmerized, when he hears paper screen being opened. His eyes widen and he abruptly turns around. Sehun is standing on the threshold with an unreadable expression on his face. Shishi takes a deep breath and puts the painting he’s been holding back on the bed.

“I...I’m sorry. I’ve heard you paint but...uhm...I never got the chance to see anything. I was...well...c-curious,” he says, stumbling over his words. He nervously looks up at Sehun again and notices the boy looking everywhere but at him, one hand clutching at the paper screen. “Are you mad?”

“No,” Sehun utters while still looking stubbornly at the floor. 

Shishi decides he really doesn’t care about acting rationally anymore. Sehun looks too pretty and Shishi has enough of stealing secret glances. He has enough of being ignored and enough of longing for something he once again seems to be unable to get. He hastily walks towards Sehun and stops only a few centimeters in front of him. His lungs are constricting painfully and he feels dizzy in a way he’s never felt before. 

When Sehun notices how close they're standing, his eyes widen almost painfully and he trips over his own feet. Shishi instinctively grabs Sehun’s arm before the boy can fall down and brushes the hair out of his face. 

“You’re beautiful,” he whispers and he can feel the other boy tremble slightly underneath his palm. 

It’s unexpected even to him. One minute they are looking at each other, the next they are kissing. Shishi doesn’t care who leaned in first because Sehun is kissing him as if there was nothing else that was important in this world, as if Shishi were his air, his hands grabbing tightly at Shishi’s clothes. Shishi’s head is spinning and he can hardly breath. It’s perfect. He imagined it before but it never came close to the real thing. He wishes it to never stop. 

Suddenly, Sehun pulls away from him. His lips are red and bruised, and his cheeks on fire. Shishi wants to kiss him again and entangle his fingers in Sehun’s hair but the moment he leans in, the boy quickly moves away.  
“You need to go now,” Sehun says in a perfectly controlled and emotionless voice. Shishi tries to ask why but before he can utter a word, Sehun spits out, “Leave.”

 

For the first few days after the incident, Shishi hopes that he’ll be able to talk to Sehun. Still, nothing changes. They are never alone and it seems as if Sehun were doing everything that is in his power to avoid him. It hurts in a way that makes him think that his ribcage is trying to pierce through his heart. Sehun continues to take his breath away, but now he seems even more distant and unattainable, to the extent that Shishi wonders if maybe he dreamt up kissing the other boy.

 

Sehun is visibly shaken by the news of the anti-Japanese protests in Korea. Shishi doesn’t know for sure and doesn’t dare to ask Hisa, but he figures Sehun’s father was probably arrested and may be facing the death penalty. There’s something that changes in the boy’s behaviour afterwards. Shishi can’t put a finger to it but it scares him, chills him to the bone. He feels almost as if he were watching an inevitable train wreck. He wishes he could do something to prevent it but he knows it’s a lost case.

It happens much too fast. One day he sees Sehun leaving the house, the next one of his friends (with slightly tanned skin, called Atsuyoshi as far as Shishi can remember) comes banging at the door. Hisa ushers him inside and takes him straight to his room. Shishi knows he shouldn’t be eavesdropping but the curiosity gets the better of him yet again. When the conversation is done, he wishes he decided to stay ignorant. Atsuyoshi is crying and Hisa is pacing nervously around the room. Shishi slides down to the floor and clenches his fists tight. The one thing he dreaded the most came true; Sehun has been arrested.

Hisa takes to aimlessly walking around the house. He looks gloomy and refuses to talk to anyone unless he absolutely has to. Shishi doesn’t need to ask to know that his friend feels trapped. No matter what he does, someone will die. If he tries to get Sehun out of jail, it will most likely be all three of them. Unfortunately, before they can even attempt to find a solution, Hisa tells him in a grave tone that Sehun is, in fact, already dead.

It’s the last straw for Shishi. While Hisa turns to Rei with his sadness, Shishi is once again left alone, trying to pick up the pieces of his heart that has been smashed too often. Still, no matter how hard he tries, he’s unable to glue them together and can only stare as they break over and over again. 

This time the flood of emotions swipes him off his feet. He knows he’s being selfish. He didn’t know Sehun enough to feel so strongly about him. Nevertheless, life without the other boy is eerily empty and the colours around him seem washed out. His yearning for Sehun has become even stronger and more often than not it chokes him. Seeing Hisa only makes it worse. He begins to hate him for having the one thing he really wants, for being happily in love.

It becomes tiring to keep on going. No matter what he went through in his past lives, he’s still too weak to manage on his own. Hence, he gives up the way he usually does. He writes his last poem, leaves it without a title on his writing desk and slits his wrists.

*

Sehun is standing in front of the mirror in the hallway, trying to tame his hair. He’s been at it for good twenty minutes during which Jongin managed to drink his coffee, brush his teeth and leave for uni. It’s a true lost case, for the hair at the back of his head is still sticking in at least three different directions. This has never bothered him before but today, anything he can do to delay the impending doom, he will do. Sehun lets out an exaggerated sigh and grabs his bag. If he doesn’t leave in next five minutes, he knows he will be late. He takes a final look at his reflection in the mirror and opens the front door.

 

He bumps into a pillar and two fellow students on the way to room 601, which he deems to be an exceptionally dark foreboding. He can feel a disaster approaching even before he finds himself in front of the damn classroom. His legs seem much too weak all of a sudden, and his heartbeat is trying to set a new record in the ridiculous department.

He’s not sure how he manages to enter the room without making a big spectacle out of himself, but here he is. There are only five minutes left until the class starts so he sits down on the floor next to the nearest student. The walls covered entirely by mirrors make Sehun feel far too self-conscious. No matter where he looks, he can see himself looking back. Not that he thinks he’s ugly, but he really doesn’t need to make himself even more nervous by observing his visibly tense facial expressions. His musings are interrupted by the entrance of the dance teacher, who is much younger and much prettier than Sehun expected. He thinks that maybe the class won’t be all that bad.

He isn’t so sure about it thirty minutes later, when they are given a short break. His muscles hurt more than should be humanly possible and opening a water bottle feels like a chore worthy of Hercules. He drinks it greedily while slowly looking around. He recognizes a few faces from his Theory of Art class, now that he can focus on something else than the reflection of his flailing limbs. Somehow the person talking to the teacher seems familiar to Sehun. He’s sifting his memory for a name when the boy finally turns around. It’s a blessing that Sehun has already finished drinking the water because he’s sure that otherwise he’d be having a choking fit. After all, Luhan is supposed to be dead and not participating in the contemporary dance class at his uni.

 

Sehun forgets all about aching limbs and lack of coordination once the class is over. He dresses as quickly as he can and dashes out of 601. He stops running only after he turns the first corner and slumps down the wall. His thoughts are racing, but at the same time he is not as shocked as he should be. If Luhan could come back to life once, then it’s possible for him to do it a second time. It’s beyond crazy, no doubt about that. It probably means trouble too. Still, Sehun can’t make himself stay away. Curiosity may have killed the cat but he wants to know everything. By the time he can see Luhan approaching, his breathing is slow and controlled.

“Luhan wait,” he says before his mind can even process what’s happening. The other boy looks up at him and freezes.

“Sehun,” Luhan breathes, rather than saying his name. Sehun isn’t sure how it’s possible, but clearly the other boy knows him too. They look at each other in complete silence until Luhan decides to sit next to him. Sehun musters all the courage he can find and blurts out, “How come you’re alive? I saw you die twice.”

Luhan looks down at his fingers that are playing with the hem of his jeans. He seems to be unsure what to say. Sehun is unable to read him though, as his face is like a mask, utterly blank. “So it all happened in the same place at the same time?”

“What?”

Without a warning Luhan starts laughing loudly. It borders on hysterical and Sehun begins feeling a bit uneasy. No matter how curious he may be about Luhan, right now he’s alone with a guy he doesn’t know and who should have died ages ago. And the said guy appears to be a bit too bipolar for Sehun’s liking. Any normal person would run away screaming in such a situation. He gulps and looks around frantically for the nearest exit.

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” he hears Luhan whisper and turns towards him with a jolt. “I’m not sure what I should tell you. To be honest, I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to tell you anything. There might be a reason why every time I died here, you were near but...but...,” Luhan pauses and covers his face with his hands. “Look. To put it simply, after I die, I always end up in a new place with a new life. Usually, either I go back in time or find myself in the future. The last two times I somehow stayed in the same place.”

“So...basically...uhm...so you’re theoretically not the same person I saw die?”

“Well, it was me but it was a different life of mine.”

“Right.” Sehun counts to ten in his head, but instead of calming down he still wants to shout 'fire' and run away as fast as his tired legs can manage.

“Look, I don’t know why it happens either. I’ve no idea why I can’t really die and why I’m stuck in some kind of a bizarre time loop and why the last two times I died, it happened in front of you,” says Luhan’s in a strained voice. It sounds like a desperate attempt to keep Sehun from leaving and he figures that maybe the boy is as harmless as he looks to be.

“OK. OK. I get it. How do you know my name though?”

Luhan smiles in response and all the worries that have been bugging Sehun immediately dissipate into thin air. “I met you in one of my past lives. Figured your name may still be the same.” 

 

Monday has never been his favourite day of the week but now it’s officially his most hated one. Not only does he have most of his classes that day, he now starts it with two-hour-long dance class. Sehun is aching and very grumpy by the time he comes back home. Fortunately, Jongin seems to be out so Sehun makes himself a cup of instant ramen, tops it with an egg and plops lifelessly onto the sofa in the living room. He turns on the TV but pays it no attention. He barely even registers what he’s eating. Instead, he keeps on replaying the conversation he had with Luhan over and over again in his mind.

Up until now, he’d thought that he would get all his questions answered if only he had the opportunity to speak with Luhan. However, it seems that Luhan doesn’t know much, and most of what he does know Sehun has figured out himself already. The whole situation has been utterly anticlimactic, he thinks. Sure, Luhan seems to be unable to die the way people usually die. Other than that though, he appears to be painfully normal. Well, as normal as one can be when one’s immortal, or whatever it is that Luhan actually is. It makes Sehun’s head hurt just thinking about all the possibilities. He isn’t even sure if it’s worth it, mulling over things he has no chance of comprehending.

Sehun finishes his noodles, dumps the empty cup on the table and lies down on the sofa with a sigh. He figures there are only two ways he can go about this; either he pretends Luhan doesn’t exist or he goes with the flow and sees where it takes him.

*

He figures someone up there must really hate him. It’s been obvious for a while now. However, today just proves it conclusively. It hasn’t been long since he bumped into Sehun. He went through enough to know that the boy, although identical face-wise to the Sehun he once knew, might have a completely different personality. He doesn’t harbour some secret puppy love either. There was a time when he was acting like a stupid teenager, but that was a few lifetimes ago. Still, he figures it wouldn’t hurt to try and see Sehun again. Nothing may come out of it but one can never know.

 

What happens, though, is today. It’s one of the deus ex machina deaths. During the lunch break Luhan goes up to the rooftop of his office to clear his head. One minute he’s standing, leaning against the rail. The next, he’s falling down. The wind is howling and hitting him in the face strongly enough that he has to close his eyes. He knows it takes seconds but it feels like years before he finally hits something solid, and then, before he can register what has happened, he’s gone.

 

Luhan wakes up in a bed in a room that looks strangely familiar. He figures the person that he now is most likely decorated it themselves. He sits up and looks around. There are a few piles of books next to the bed. The shelves are packed with dictionaries and notebooks, and he can see a laptop, still turned on, on the desk. There are also some photos pinned to a board that's hanging above the desk. Other than that, the room only has a wardrobe and an overly filled bin. Luhan guesses he must be a student this time. The room may look a bit too tidy for that but he was never too fond of throwing his clothes or books around.

He walks to the desk to take a closer look at the bookshelves. What he sees leaves him dumbfounded. He expected to be studying anything but music composition. He starts looking around more frantically, trying to locate some kind of a timetable to confirm his suspicions. He finds it in the first desk drawer and flops back onto the bed, dejected. He majors in music composition and minors in contemporary dance. Just perfect.

 

The next few days are beyond stressful. He attends a few classes with the memories of his current life hazy and mixed up. He doesn’t end up doing anything stupid, but he does come close to losing his way back home and ignoring one or two friends he doesn’t remember having. What stresses him the most though is his flatmate, who’s a bit too energetic for him to handle and likes to keep him awake at night with his incessant singing. Baekhyun’s voice may be really nice but there’s only that much Luhan can handle when he needs to be up at 6:30 am the next day.

*

He’s still a bit jittery on Thursday for he hasn’t seen Luhan since the last time they talked. Once again, he spends a good half an hour styling his hair before he leaves for the dance class. This time the class takes place in the early afternoon and since he has no other classes today, he takes his time. For whatever reason he doesn’t comprehend, Sehun feels the need to look good. He’s fully aware that at the end of the class he’ll be sweaty, tired and very unattractive. And yet, it doesn’t stop him for putting on a proper show in front of the mirror.

 

Luhan is there already when he arrives at 601. He comes over to Sehun as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“Hi,” says Luhan and beams at him. Sehun’s throat goes abruptly dry. He thought it’d be easy to act normal around the other boy but now he realizes that it was just his wishful thinking.

“Hey,” he manages to utter, his voice unusually strained. Luhan doesn’t notice that, or pretends not to, and continues to smile.

“Do you remember the routine we practiced last time? I’ve heard you’ve just joined the class.”

Sehun takes a deep breath and wills his voice to sound normal. “Yeah, I did. I think I have, like, half of it down.”

“If you have any problems, I can help you. This room is usually empty after this class.”

Luhan is still smiling at him and Sehun wonders if maybe he’s not the only one who’s silently freaking out. It makes him feel a little better and he smiles back. Although the smile is barely there, it is a progress. He tells himself it will take time but it’s doable. “Sure.”

 

He doesn’t really see his flatmate that week. Hence, it’s no wonder he’s downright dumbfounded when he gets home only to find a mini party taking place in his living room. For some reason Jongin saw the need to invite even Kris. Sehun wonders if he can get away with throwing his bag into his flatmate’s annoying face. It’s not as if Jongin’s nose could possibly get any more flat, right? And judging from all the beer cans lying on the floor (and a beyond wasted Kyungsoo sleeping next to the TV), he’s very much inebriated and thus poses a considerably smaller threat.

“Sehun, mate! We were waiting for you!”

Sehun groans and kicks his shoes off. “I bet you were, but I’m too tired to entertain you. So good night.”

Jongin tries to stand up but only manages to land on the sofa with a loud crash, knocking several of the cans to the floor.

“But Sehuuuuuuun! You must tell me how your class went!” His flatmate’s voice reaches a new level of loud and irritating. Kris’ and Junmyeon’s giggling makes his head pound all the more painfully, so Sehun swiftly gets inside his room and locks the door. Even if the drunk idiots come to bang on his door, they will tire of it sooner than they would of prying into his life while getting pissed in the living room.

 

He barely manages to get out of his room in the morning because Jongin is sprawled on the floor in the hallway. Kris, Kyungsoo and Junmyeon still occupy the living room together with more beer cans than should be able to exist in one place. The place stinks pretty badly. Sehun decides that he doesn’t feel like being a Good Samaritan today. He takes a quick shower, opens all the windows in the living room and leaves without waking up any of his friends. If they have the guts to have a karaoke session in the middle of the night, they can very well miss The Theory of Art mid-midterm test.

 

Sehun misses his tube station and spends additional 15 minutes that he doesn’t have on going back. He also barely manages to avoid walking straight into the tree that’s a good several metres away from the the uni entrance (so Sehun is rather puzzled on how he came so close to it). His eyes are half-open, he has the biggest headache possible and everything is kind of fuzzy at the edges. Pulling all-nighters has never been a problem. If missing some sleep is doing this to him now, then clearly he must be getting old.

 

He’s walking out of his last class when he hears his phone vibrate persistently. He isn’t too keen on picking it up since the chances of it being a pissed off Jongin are extremely high. However, when his phone starts to vibrate again just a few minutes later, he rolls his eyes and digs it out of his bag. The number seems familiar but it isn’t anyone from his contact list. He hesitates for a few seconds but in the end presses call pickup. When he hears the overly cheerful voice greet him, he groans inwardly. Just what he needed to feel better.

“Is there anything important you wanted to talk about? I’m kind of in a hurry.”

“It’s about Luhan actually. One policeman swears he saw him alive last week.”

“W-What?”

“Have you seen him too?”

“Uhm...no?” he says calmly, even though his heart is racing. He wonders why the creepy policeman decided to call him. While he did in fact see, and even talk, to Luhan, there is no way anyone could have seen that happen. Besides, Luhan doesn’t exactly look like he did before. Sure his face is almost identical, but he looks a good few years younger, is thinner and taller, and his hair is now blond. If anything, people would take him for a relative of the Luhan who’s supposed to be dead.

“I see. Want a private tour of the main police station?”

Sehun blinks and stutters, “Erhm..I..huh?”

“A tour. I’m a really good guide. I know every nook and cranny of that place.”

That does it for him. Sehun decides to drop any pretense of being nice. It’s obvious that for once Jongin was right.

“Why would I agree to something like this? I don’t get you. Are you trying to hit on me?”

He hears the policeman giggle and answer, “Well, of course I am. So what do you say? We can go somewhere else if you agree to a date.”

“Are you kidding me? I’m not interested,” he spits out and ends the call. He can feel his temples pulsate slightly. It’s a clear sign of yet another headache approaching. It really isn’t his day today.

He’s cursing everything on this planet when he notices Luhan sitting on a bench in front of the main uni building, typing away on his phone. He hesitates at first but eventually decides to chat him up. After all, he’ll need all the practice he can get to learn how to relax around Luhan. “Hey.”

Luhan looks up at him, disoriented. “Oh...it’s you. Hi.”

Sehun shifts in place and looks down at his shoes. “C-Can I join you?”

“Ah! Of course, sit down,” Luhan says, smiling so brightly that for a moment Sehun feels blinded, and pats the bench. “You’re done with classes for today?”

“Yeah.”

“Me too. What do you study?”

Sehun thinks that Luhan is like a chatterbox. He fills the space between them with words so fast that Sehun has no time to feel awkward. He isn’t too big on talking himself, but Luhan makes him open up far quicker than anyone has ever had. Even Jongin needed a good month back when they were in high school.

Before he knows it, he’s whining to Luhan about Jongin’s impromptu party and the last two questions from The Theory of Art test that the professor must have pulled out of his ass. It really feels as if they have known each other for ages. Sehun wonders if some memories from the previous life in which he met Luhan aren’t buried somewhere deep in his subconsciousness. He doesn’t remember living before but knowing what happened to Luhan, he thinks that reincarnation might actually be possible.

*

When he sees Sehun waiting for him in the corridor after class, he knows he came back to the same place as before. He doesn’t understand it; he’s been dying and living for what seems like an eternity and never before had he returned to the same place in the same time. It feels absolutely surreal and suddenly Luhan has no idea what to think. There’s too much that he wants to say but he can’t find the right words. He’s sure he must sound like a raging lunatic, for Sehun seems to be positively terrified. He tries to collect himself, stop his thoughts from running rampant and his emotions from clouding the little judgment he has left. In the end, he notices a small smile tugging at the corner of Sehun’s lips and the relief he feels is enormous. It might be stupid to feel so happy over something so trivial. Still, Sehun is special to him, more than Hisa or Yixing have ever been. And he looks almost the same as he did back in Japan, back when he stole Luhan’s breath away. If Luhan can take this chance to get to know Sehun properly, he will. He has enough of regret and thinking of what could have been.

*

For the next three days he and Jongin live among a hostile silence. Sehun knows that his flatmate is furious at him. He would be too in his place. Still, he thinks that Jongin acted like a proper douche himself so it makes them even. Not that he’s going to say that out loud, he has his pride.

 

Someone knocks on his door in the evening of the third day. He looks up from the book he’s been reading and stares silently at the door. There’s no one in the flat but him and Jongin, and he isn’t sure he wants to confront his friend just yet. However, the knocking continues and Sehun opens the door with a grimace on his face.

“Truce?”

Sehun opens his mouth but no words come out. His flatmate is visibly uncomfortable, looking at the ground and playing with his fingers. It’s a definite first.

“I’m sorry, OK. I know we went overboard but I wish you’d woken me up anyway. Wait, no. Ugh. What I want to say is...well...It’s not gonna happen again so let’s stop sulking. I’m sorry for acting like such a jerk,” Jongin mutters and proceeds to closely examine his fingernails. Sehun closes his mouth and opens it again, still too shocked to answer.

“It this a no?” His friend looks at him shyly from under his fringe.

“No. What? It’s a yes. I mean. I-I’m not mad anymore. I’m sorry I didn’t wake you up either.”

Jongin smiles at him and Sehun feels a weight lift itself off his shoulders. He didn’t even realized how tense he’s been for the past few days.

“So how was the dance class? Were you all sore?”

“I still am. No idea how I’m going to survive the class again tomorrow.”

 

Sehun wakes up early in the morning and trips over a pile of books he keeps next to the bed. He groans and rolls over on the floor. His arms are still a bit sore from the last dance class and now his left foot hurts as well. The sun has already risen and its light is trying to burn his retinas. He closes his eyes, grabs the pillow off his bed and presses his head into it. He still feels drowsy, enough to wish that he could just go back to sleep.

It gets worse once the class actually starts. He survives the first half on sheer determination which crumbles the moment he spots Luhan. The other dances so effortlessly, his every movement natural but at the same time perfectly controlled. It’s not that Sehun is a bad dancer. On the contrary, the dance teacher told him last time that he learns surprisingly fast for a beginner. Still, Sehun knows that he lacks that certain something that clearly Luhan has. He can repeat all the moves but they are somehow stiff, look rehearsed.

It really is a small miracle that the teacher doesn’t end up scolding him that day. For the rest of the class he reminds unfocused, copying the moves half-heartedly and stealing glances at Luhan whenever he gets the chance. At the end, he catches himself looking into a mirror, while packing his backpack, and is taken aback by the malicious sneer that his mouth has twisted into. In the corner of his eye he notices Luhan hurriedly changing, with a panicked expression on his face, and feels unusually spiteful all of the sudden. He grabs his backpack and stomps out of 601.

Sehun is acting beyond immature and he is fully aware that he’s just being a jealous ass. To add insult to the injury, he’s being an ass over someone doing well in a subject he himself chose as a floater and was never serious about to begin with. And that someone even offered to help him if need be. Nevertheless, he doesn’t as much as glance back at Luhan, and derives a sick sort of satisfaction from knowing that he must be wreaking havoc in the other boy’s mind right now.

 

He’s certain that his action incurred God’s wrath, later that day, when he gets the following text:

so u reconsidered the police st date by any chance? let me know if u did. my name’s Chanyeol btw B)

 

Sehun wakes up the next morning feeling unusually confused. He knows he did something very stupid but no matter how much he racks his brain, he can’t remember what it was. It hits him half an hour later when he’s brushing his teeth. If it weren’t for all the toothpaste inside his mouth, he would groan and swear out loud.

It’s no secret that Sehun can be a horrible ass when he’s in a bad mood. In fact, all his friends know that when Sehun’s face looks deader than usually it’s better to ignore his existence altogether. It pisses him off even more but makes it impossible for him to hurt them verbally, which he excels at. Of course, Luhan doesn’t know this and really, Sehun didn’t expect he would be so irritated just to see someone dance better than him, no matter the extent of his bad mood.

He knows he should apologize but he feels like the biggest douche ever to grace the planet. Hence, he goes out of his way to avoid Luhan during the Thursday dance class, skips the Monday class and wallows in self-pity and self-disgust for about a week. It reaches such a level of ridiculousness by Wednesday that Kyungsoo forces him to come over to his place in the evening and stuffs him with more food that Sehun can possibly eat.

“So what kind of a stupid thing did you do now?” Kyungsoo asks him when he’s done eating. They are still sitting in Kyungsoo’s kitchen and Sehun has been feeling both happy and terrified at the same time.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” answers Sehun and proceeds to stuff his mouth with the leftovers, even though he’s past the bursting-with-food point, in hopes that Kyungsoo drops the subject.

“Yhm, sure. You wouldn’t have been moping for the past few days if you didn’t want to talk.”

“How is that even logical? I don’t wanna talk about it so I haven’t been.”

Kyungsoo moves his chair closer to Sehun and looks at him intently. “Apart from huffing and puffing and generally making all those distressed sounds?”

“What?!” Sehun splutters, half-chewed food flying in all directions, and then hastily grabs a napkin to clean the mess he's just made.

“It’s typical of you. You do something stupid, refuse to talk about it, then torture yourself with it until someone forces you to spill beans. Well, spill them.”

After another ten minutes of being difficult, Sehun does just that. It’s not as if Kyungsoo tells him anything ground-breaking. On the contrary, he just repeats exactly what Sehun has been thinking. Still, hearing someone else spell it out for him, makes Sehun feel slightly more courageous and he promises himself to apologize after the Thursday class.

*

Luhan ignores Sehun completely during the class. At first he thought that Sehun’s behaviour was a misunderstanding. He felt confused and a bit angry, but mostly he was scared that somehow he’d managed to screw up things between them again. However, when Sehun failed to show up on Monday, he knew it must have been deliberate, and it pissed him off so much that he himself was surprised. Luhan knows that if he did do something indeed, it couldn’t have been serious enough to warrant such a reaction.

He sits strategically on the other side of the classroom, staring at Sehun as the boy literally devours the contents of his water bottle once the class ends. He continues staring silently even when Sehun finally looks at him and is more than satisfied when the other begins to look visibly uncomfortable. 

Luhan waits until there’s only him and Sehun left in 601, and then walks up to him, face all blank. Up close Sehun looks small and scared, and ready to run if Luhan so much as breaths. He notices that Sehun is clenching his fists, his fingers digging into his palms painfully. He raises an eyebrow at the boy but refuses to speak up first.

Sehun licks his lips hurriedly, looks up at Luhan, eyes wide, and finally croaks, “I’m sorry. I really am. I-I’m really sorry. I was in a bad mood last time and just took it out on you because I was jealous of how well you dance. I mean...well, yeah. I was just being jealous. I-”

Luhan laughs out loud, looking at Sehun fidget. “Okay, I get it. Don’t get why you skipped Monday class if it was just that though.”

“Well, I-I do it all the time. I was afraid you’d be angry and it’s ridiculous, I know. Or that you’d be so upset you wouldn’t talk to me again. I just-I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright, you silly boy. Do you want to go through the dance routine with me then, if you think I’m this good?”

Sehun’s face brightens visibly at the suggestion and Luhan can’t help but think that the boy is just like a little kid, unable to control his emotions and happy over the smallest things. It’s endearing and he realizes that it’s the first time he met someone like that, someone who may actually be rather simple to understand. 

“Can I? Really?” The excitement in Sehun’s voice is even more palpable than the one written all over his face.

“Yeah. Let me find the right CD first.”

 

He’s leaning against one of the mirrors on the wall and watching Sehun repeat the same choreography over and over again. He corrects him once or twice but the other boy is surprisingly good at dancing. Luhan really can’t comprehend why Sehun was jealous of him when his moves are mostly precise and fluid. Sure, sometimes he gets all stiff or finishes a move too quickly. Still, he has been dancing properly for only two weeks and Luhan thinks that Sehun is doing much better than he should be. Yes, he might be a bit biased because it’s adorable how Sehun scrunches his brows when he makes a mistake or smiles at him when he finally gets something right, but he knows potential when he sees it.

Sehun collapses next to him, sweat rolling down his face and breathing hard. 

“You’re really good, you know,” he says and smiles when Sehun blushes. The mysterious Sehun he met in Japan was charming in his own way but Luhan thinks that this Sehun is much better. 

“I’m not. You’re just a good teacher.”

He snorts and rolls his eyes. “Sure. After all, all I did was look at you dancing. You can’t get better at teaching than that, can you?”

Sehun giggles and then licks his lips hastily. Luhan freezes and traces the movement of the boy’s tongue with his eyes. He’s pulled back to reality only when Sehun speaks. “Let me treat you to something in return.”

“Uhm, okay? But not today, it’s way too late.”

“How about Monday then? During lunch break?” Sehun says and beams at Luhan when he says yes.

*

“Who’s Luhan?” is the first thing Sehun hears after coming home. He throws his bag onto the sofa, walks past Jongin and locks himself in the bathroom.

“Don’t ignore me!” he hears the muffled shouts through the door. Without answering, he turns on the shower and blocks out all the annoying noise.

When he gets out of the bathroom, Jongin is still in the living room sitting on the sofa and keeping Sehun’s bag hostage. He glares at Sehun and repeats the question.

“How do you even know I know a Luhan?” 

“Kyungsoo, of course.”

Sehun sighs and sits down on the sofa next to Jongin. “How you manage to get things out of him will forever be a mystery to me.”

“Nah, it’s a gift if anything,” Jongin says and wiggles his eyebrows. Then, he scoots towards Sehun, effectively trapping him in the corner of the sofa, and puts an arm around his shoulders. “So who’s Luhan and how did he turn you into a whiney brat for a week?”

“Just a friend from my dance class.”

“Just a friend? You’re never worried ‘bout what your friends think ‘bout you though.”

Sehun shoots Jongin a glare and says through gritted teeth, “Are you implying something?”

“Me? Of course not. Why would I?” his friend replies, smiling widely. “You need to introduce him to me since he’s so special and all.”

“Oh god, Jongin-”

“You flatter me really but I’m no god.”

“Shut up! Look, I barely know him so let’s wait before I do something as suicidal.”

Jongin pouts at him cutely and Sehun considers throwing his bag in his flatmate’s face once again. “Mate, let’s face it. You’re the weird one in our circle of friends. If Luhan hasn’t been scared off by your face yet, he’ll survive meeting me too.”

Sehun rolls his eyes, throws Jongin off the sofa and says, “Maybe some other time.”

*

Baekhyun has been looking at Luhan funny the whole weekend. However, it’s only on Monday morning that he decides to voice whatever he’s been keeping bottled up inside. “So who’s the lucky lady?”

Luhan looks up at his flatmate from the cereals he’s been bravely trying to conquer. “Excuse you?”

Baekhyun huffs at him. “Don’t play dumb. You clearly met someone last week and you’ve spent so much time today getting ready I bet you’re going on a date.”

Luhan chokes on a particularly big piece of cereal and spends next few minutes trying to spit it out. Baekhyun isn’t too happy about being ignored but leaves him alone, and for that he’s glad because he didn’t think his excitement at meeting with Sehun was so palpable. He doesn’t want to seem too eager; he might like Sehun quite a lot but they don’t really know each other. Besides, Luhan isn’t sure he knows what he wants from the boy either. Before he sorts out his own feelings, he doesn’t want to start anything that he’d regret. So acting friendly is okay but acting too friendly definitely isn’t.

 

It turns out that he’s been worrying for nothing. When Sehun is around him, everything clicks just right. He doesn’t need to rack his brain for something to talk about, doesn’t feel nervous or awkward. Sehun’s presence is familiar in the most bizarre of ways.

They are laughing at the creepy policeman that Sehun has just told him about, when Luhan glances at the guy passing by their table. He blinks, does a double take and barely stops himself from gasping out loud. His new life is really starting to look like some very fucked-up class reunion.

“Say... who’s that?” he asks Sehun and points towards the tall stranger, who’s now sitting at a table not too far away from them.

“You mean that guy who’s wearing a mustard-coloured shirt and defying all laws of this universe by looking good in it?”

Luhan laughs at the way Sehun’s face twists in mild disgust. “Yeah, yeah. That one.”

“Oh. Well, that’s Kris, the resident campus try-hard,” Sehun says, matter-of-factly. “I know you must be thinking: ‘but how come, Sehun’. Well, I’m afraid words fail to describe the extent of his try-harding. You see that guy sitting next to him? The one that looks like he wants to run away?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s Junmyeon. Kris’ been trying to woo him last term. He’s been doing quite well actually but then he decided to ask Junmyeon out officially...,” Sehun pauses dramatically to roll his eyes. “That in itself wouldn’t have been so bad but he did so wearing a bright pink wifebeater, black gloves and just generally looking like a cheap male stripper. Let me tell you, that’s not how you win a fashion design major’s heart. Junmyeon’s been terrified of him ever since. I’m still surprised he agreed to come to Jongin’s party even though Kris was there.”

Luhan takes a good look at the boy Sehun has mentioned and breaks into a laughing fit. Every time Kris attempts to move closer to Junmyeon, the other boy leans as far back as he can. By the time Luhan stops giggling, Junmyeon is basically sitting in the lap of some boy who’s seated next to him, eyes wide and body tense like a string that’s on the verge of snapping.

Kris looks exactly like Luhan remembers him. He’s tall, handsome and has that overly familiar strong presence. However, he lacks the aura of stoicism and seriousness that used to fascinate Luhan so. There are bits and pieces of it still there, but it’s clear at one glance that Kris isn’t Yomishihisa. He seems too awkward, too willing to please others, even if his gaze is sharp and calculating. Looking at him reminds Luhan of a different life; one that feels as if it happened centuries ago, almost like a fairy tale.

 

It was different that time. He could feel it in his bones as if it were a tangible thing, a searing cold. The feeling passed as quickly as it came, only to be replaced by an overbearing nostalgia. The colours of leaves, the sound of the wind, the vast fields and a waterfall of all kinds of noises, he couldn’t place it but he knew he’d experienced it all before.

It took him some time to piece it all together. He spent hours grasping at fleeting memories, mouthing the words in a language that was new to him, even if it felt like his mother tongue. It all came back to him abruptly and unexpectedly through his new name-Lucjan.

 

This time he’s a scholar, a young and freshly graduated one. Still, instead of burying himself under all the books he can finally buy and wants to read, he’s working as a teacher in one of the newly re-opened schools in the capital, Warszawa. Lucjan teaches nearly everything, although his favourite subject is Polish. After years of not being able to speak or teach the language, it’s like a breath of fresh air to be able to let the mix of soft and harsh sounds roll off his tongue without fearing for his life. It makes him as happy as the fact that his country is once again acknowledged as an independent state. He knows he’s being sentimental, but he feels that teaching is now more meaningful than it has or will ever be. It doesn’t pay much and he still needs to keep his job as an assistant journalist to make ends meet. Nevertheless, he doesn’t yearn for more. He might have little but he’s satisfied.

The new life and the new home that comes with it make Lucjan forget about his unfortunate past. It’s almost as if it never happened, as if he finally landed in the one place that he truly belongs to. 

 

He hears about the restaurant from one of his older students. It’s the talk of the town and visited by the crème de la crème of the bourgeois, as well as the common people who are craving for something exciting. It’s a novelty. The first, and for a long time the only, Chinese restaurant in Poland.

The first time he decides to go see the place, it’s crowded beyond belief. The evening passes by in a blur. He remembers liking the food, but there’s little more that he can recall. Hence, he goes again a week later, this time in the early afternoon. 

The restaurant welcomes him, half-empty, with a mix of exotic smells. He sits down at the table next to a window and observes the tall waiter maneuver swiftly and gracefully between the tables, hands full of dishes that Lucjan has never seen before. Another waiter, with full cheeks and a bright smile, comes up to him with the menu. The word “baozi” passes through his mind for a moment and he’s confused. It can’t be a Polish word and, while Lucjan knows a few languages, it sounds nothing like any of them. He can barely contain his laughter, however, when he spots it in the menu. He orders the dish without a second thought and later has to suppress the giggles that threaten to spill out every time he looks at the waiter and his round face.

It takes a few trips to the restaurant for Lucjan to learn that the tall, graceful waiter is Zitao (though he goes by Zdzisław) and the one with full cheeks is Minseok (though he calls himself Mirosław). Both men found themselves in Poland by chance and have spent enough time in the capital to understand Polish well. Zitao is almost fluent, never asking Lucjan to repeat anything and randomly switching from Mandarin into Polish, leaving Minseok confused. 

They have an unusual arrangement. Lucjan talks to them in Polish but most of the time they answer him in Mandarin. Certain things from his past lives do linger about but never before has he remembered a language. Still, this way he can explain how he understands Cantonese. However, his knowledge of Mandarin baffles him for he can’t recall ever living in the part of China that actually uses it.

Anyway, before he knows it, he becomes a regular customer at the restaurant. It’s during one of the slow Tuesday evenings that Lucjan finally gets to see who the mysterious Krzysztof, that Zitao and Minseok has been talking about from time to time, is. 

The man turns out to be Chinese, tall and imposing, stalking through the restaurant like he owns it and barking orders at the two waiters in a way that leaves no room for slacking. He also looks exactly like Yomishihisa, down to the majestic eyebrows and the chiselled face. Lucjan watches him enter the kitchen, tells Minseok he will come back later and walks out of the restaurant as fast as he can without arousing suspicion. He spends the rest of the evening in a park, feeding the constantly hungry pigeons and staring at the pond with a blank expression. It’s not the first time he faces someone he used to know in a life past but it never gets easier. He has a whole baggage of memories that weigh him down, while the other person doesn’t even know his name. It’s frustrating and confusing, and deep down he knows it hurts him more than he’ll ever admit it does.

He goes back to the restaurant only when he knows it’s time for it to close.

“Was that the Krzysztof you two always whisper about?” he asks Minseok while the other polishes the tables.

“Yeah, though his real name is actually Kris.”

“No, it’s Jiaheng.” 

Lucjan turns towards Minseok with confusion written all over his face.

“Don’t listen to that idiot. Zitao can say whatever he wants but no one ever tries to call Kris that.”  
Zitao sits down on one of the just cleaned tables, making Minseok sigh in resignation, and says, “I sure do.”

“In which dimension, huh?”

“In this one,” Zitao insists.

“Look, I know you think you’re one special snowflake but let’s face it, Kris doesn’t treat you any differently than he treats me. Now move your ass and finish sweeping the floor.”

 

He doesn’t see Kris for good two months afterwards. He’s a bit curious about the man mostly because of how strange Minseok and Zitao become when they talk about him. It’s as if something in the air suddenly shifts, making Minseok exasperated and Zitao act like a little child. 

They meet randomly in the Old Town. Lucjan is searching for a bookshop one of his friends recommended when he hears someone call out his name. He turns around and gapes. There’s Kris standing in front of him, still tall and incredibly handsome but appearing somehow much more normal and relaxed.

“I’ve heard about you from Minseok and Zitao and seen you at the restaurant before. I don’t know if they told you but I’m the owner.”

Lucjan blinks and says the first thing that comes to his mind, “I see.”

They make small talk for a while more before Kris asks him out for dinner and Lucjan, contrary to what his inner voice of reason is telling him, agrees. He can live for centuries or millennia, but in the end he can never resist doing all the things he knows are stupid and dangerous. Recklessness is innate in him.

 

It starts innocently enough. It always does. They meet for dinner, or sometimes just to have coffee, or run into each other at Kris’ restaurant. It doesn’t take long for Lucjan to feel that they’ve managed to forge some kind of a peculiar friendship. It’s not as natural as what he has with Minseok or Zitao; their relationship seems much more forced, almost as if Kris felt obliged to spend time with him. On the other hand, he appears to be comfortable every time they meet. It boggles Lucjan’s mind but in the end he’s happy to have his old friend back in his life in whatever form he can. 

That’s what he thinks at first. However, all the accidental touches, Kris sitting too close, unconsciously leaning towards him, staring at him when he thinks Lucjan isn’t looking, it all hits him one day like a rising tide and floods the world he painstakingly constructed. Suddenly, Minseok’s disapproving glances and Zitao’s strained smiles make perfect sense. And he doesn’t feel sorry for putting this strain on his friends’ relationship, because he realizes that, although he met Sehun, he wants Kris all for himself too. Maybe it’s just selfishness or the inability to admit defeat. Still, Lucjan decides to take this utterly uncalculated risk.

 

It’s like a storm, filling him to the brim with emotions too violent, too overbearing. He doesn’t fight them though. Instead, he leans back against the armchair, looks straight at Kris and slowly licks his lips. They stare at each other in the crowded coffee shop, the air stuffy and silence thick with tension. Lucjan lets his fingers wander and traces Kris’ thigh in a tantalizingly slow way, watching him swallow hard. Kris’ eyes follow his every move and Lucjan thinks he’s never felt this attractive before. It’s akin to some sort of a perverse validation, being desired to this extent. 

He lets his hand linger while Kris moves closer to him, making everything seem so much more focused, colours saturated beyond belief. He breathes out shakily when Kris’ lips touch his ear, and when the other man whispers that they should go somewhere else, the only thing he can do in response is nod. 

 

When Lucjan visits the restaurant later the same week, Minseok scrunches his brows together and pointedly looks anywhere but at him.

“Never thought you’d be so shameless, Lucjan.”

“Huh?”

His friend shoots him a glare and rolls his eyes. “The hickey. It’s huge. Cover yourself before Zitao sees that.”

“And why would that be a problem?”

“H-He’s a child. He doesn’t need to be traumatized so early in his life,” Minseok says, trying to look as if everything is fine, but Lucjan knows him too well to be fooled. He notices how his hands shake a bit and his voice falters. Zitao’s carefree smile flashes in his mind but he shakes his head and turns back to the menu.

 

It’s addictive; the feel of Kris’ palms against his skin, the heated kisses, the impatient fingers tugging at his clothes and tangling in his hair. He likes it too much and figures there is no reason for him to stop, because for once he’s no longer alone. The world may crumble around him and everyone else might disappear just like this, overnight. Still, he will have this just for himself, whatever it is that he has with Kris. And so he doesn’t stop but rather throws himself into the affair as if Kris were his last breath.

 

He comes over just after the restaurant has been closed, opens the back door and crosses the kitchen, looking around. He’s almost at the entrance to the dining area when he hears something heavy hitting the ground. The object crashes and the glass shards fly haphazardly around, some of them landing at his feet. Lucjan gulps and tip toes towards the door.

There’s Zitao, his chest heaving hard, palms clenched and eyes forlorn. He isn’t saying anything, just stands still and lets half-muffled sobs wreck his body, while Minseok slowly comes up to him and hugs him. Lucjan feels as if his lungs suddenly collapsed and it hits him harder than ever before just what he’s being doing. He can’t tear his eyes away from the scene because Zitao isn’t one to look so small and fragile, especially not when he’s in Minseok’s arms. 

Later, once Zitao has calmed down and left, Minseok cleans the mess on the floor and sits next to Lucjan on the ground. 

“Why did you do it?” he asks, hugging his knees as if they were his lifeboat. Lucjan looks at his tired expression and utters softly, “I didn’t know.”

Minseok looks right back at him, tiredness abruptly replaced by anger, and spits out, “You didn’t know?”

“I...I-I guess I did. I just didn’t realize it was that serious. I-”

“You were too busy thinking about yourself? Well done on that, by the way.”

Lucjan sighs and leans his head against the wall. “What should I do now?”

A moment of silence follows and when he looks up to see where Minseok is, he realizes he’s been left alone. He doesn’t try to run after his friend. Lucjan is more than aware that the damage he’s caused is irreparable. Instead, he stands up, takes the keys that Minseok left on the counter next to the fridge and locks the restaurant doors.

*

Sehun lifts up his eyes from his notebook and focuses his gaze on Kris’ recently dyed, eyefuckingly red hair. His right eyelid starts to twitch and he concludes that clearly, Kris is not only the bane of everyone’s existence, but also causes severe calcium deficiency. Then, he heaves an exaggerated sigh and pokes Kris right between his shoulder blades with a pencil. The reaction is instantaneous. The boy yelps and hits his desk with one of his knees, causing his pens to roll off and disappear under the rows of chairs and desks in front of him. He turns around and glares at Sehun.

“What the fuck was that for?”

Sehun raises an eyebrow at him and looks back down at his notebook. “I was bored.”

He ignores the boy’s exasperated whispers that promise a long and painful death in the near future and proceeds to doodle intricate nonsense on the margin. It’s not as if he can tell Kris the truth. Oh you know, I met with Luhan and he asked me who you were and then stared at you for quite a while and, generally, I felt like a third wheel for a bit and, of course, I hate you now much more than I did before, although that might be kind of hard to accomplish. No, Sehun doesn’t think that would go down well. But really, he’s sure being jealous of people you’ve known only for a short while is all levels of stupid and narrow-minded. Not to mention, Luhan is a weirdo who can’t die, although that bothers Sehun much less than it should. Actually, if he is to be frank, it doesn’t bother him at all, rather it’s akin to some exotic superpower and thus is the epitome of pretty cool.

Being jealous in this situation may seem groundless but Sehun has started noticing a worrying trend when it comes to Luhan and jealousy. He doesn’t need anyone to spell it out for him; he’s aware that it means that he cares, though he isn’t sure why he cares to such an extent.

He isn’t destined to get much time alone with his notebook because Jongin, probably on purpose, elbows him right in one of his kidneys and, acting all oblivious to Sehun’s pain, asks, “What’s up? You’re shining brighter than the sun outside today.”

Sehun doesn’t need to look outside to know it’s raining and depressingly dark. “Fuck off, Jongin. I don’t need a reason to hate on Kris.”

“Didn’t you reach a truce halfway through that painting course you failed though?” By now Jongin is invading his personal space so effectively that he’s breathing down his neck. Sehun counts to ten in his head and tightens his grip on the pencil. “Yeah. So what? Today is my hate-a-Kris day.”

*

He is distracted for the rest of that day. His thoughts keep coming back to that scenery, that bizarre familiarity. He tries to let the Polish words he remembers roll of his tongue as well. At first the sounds come out all wrong, too soft where they should be stronger, but then something changes and suddenly the words flow out perfectly. It’s as if the language has been buried inside him all this time, waiting for the right time to manifest itself.

He dreams that night that he’s crossing a huge field covered with poppies. The sky is incredibly clear and blue. He’s going towards a small forest that’s located right on top of a steep hill, overlooking an eerily dry and stony ravine. There’s a murmur of sorts reverberating inside his head, making his limbs feel heavy and dulling his senses.

He passes a pile of strangely shaped stones and stops near the edge of the hill. The wind picks up somewhere close to him and a few pebbles tumble down, crashing to the ground. The echo collides with him almost physically, making him teeter. Even though he wants to feel scared, something lulls him into a false sense of security and roots him to the spot.

Then, he’s falling down, faster and faster, bumping into things he cannot see. It hurts and his bones begin to crack like a fragile mosaic. He hears his Polish name shouted angrily from above him and the next thing he knows, he’s sitting on his bed awake and covered in sweat.

 

Things start to change from then on. At first there’s just a feeling of dread bubbling under his skin, he notices it, but doesn’t pay much attention to it. However, it builds up gradually, day after day, until the feeling becomes a hurricane threatening to turn his world upside down. 

Luhan remembers a bit more each day. His past lives come back to him in dreams, familiar sceneries, faces or smells. He thinks he can handle the memories because not all of them are sad, but it proves that much more difficult when he realizes that he’s a few steps from falling in love with Sehun. It shouldn’t really matter, and yet the past reminds him of just how much of a destructive force he had been to the people around him. He managed to destroy Sehun’s life once before, even if indirectly, and if there’s one thing he wants to avoid at all costs, it’s complicating Sehun’s life once again.

*

Sehun can’t pinpoint the exact time or day when it started but he’s been feeling as if something were off for a while now. Although he and Luhan have been meeting up quite often, Sehun thinks that the way Luhan looks at him is disconcerting, almost as if Luhan was trying very hard to hide something from him. One minute they may be laughing, the next Luhan’s expression changes just so, enough to alert Sehun that his friend is thinking of things that Sehun can’t be privy to. So even if they meet, Sehun feels as if they were drifting apart rather than getting to know each other better.

 

It has been around two months since they have met when Sehun graduates from hanging out with Luhan at uni during breaks or for additional dance practices. It’s a gloomy Thursday afternoon in late November. They practice the routine a few times in the empty classroom but neither really feels like putting in any effort, so they collapse on the floor in a mass of sweaty limbs. Sehun is trying to count the number of burned light bulbs in the room when Luhan’s voice, jarringly loud in the silence, pulls him back to reality.

“Want to come over to my place?”

Sehun takes a second to replay the words in his head, abruptly turns to the side and nervously licks his lips while staring at the boy’s profile. “Today?”

“Yeah,” says Luhan, this time looking straight at him. There’s something eerily unnerving in his gaze. Sehun can’t put a finger on it but it makes him feel like a young boy following a stranger he was told to stay away from. 

“Okay, let’s go.” 

 

They run into Baekhyun on the staircase. He looks Sehun up and down slowly, turns to Luhan and winks at him, making him groan. Then, he smirks and runs down the stairs, his laughter ringing in Sehun’s ears long after the boy is gone. Sehun watches the exchange slightly puzzled, all while Luhan busies himself with the keys to his flat. When Luhan finally catches Sehun’s questioning gaze, he shrugs and motions for Sehun to go inside the flat. Sehun has an inkling that something quite important might have just happened but doesn’t pursue the subject. After all, he has better things to do, such as looking around Luhan’s flat and basking in the knowledge that he is one of the few people Luhan has ever invited over. Not to mention that he’s certain Luhan wouldn’t tell him a word even if he did ask.

 

They are trying to choose a movie to watch when Luhan looks at him the same way he did in the practice room. Sehun freezes and instantly the atmosphere becomes painfully awkward. They have mainly been meeting by themselves, so being alone with Luhan shouldn’t faze him. It’s not the first time Luhan has looked at him like this either. However, the comforting familiarity of being in a public place is lost in the boy’s flat and suddenly pretending that everything is fine seems beyond his capabilities. Still, Sehun thinks it isn’t his cue to do anything, since if Luhan wanted to share what has been bothering him, he wouldn’t need to be persuaded. 

After a good ten minutes spent in silence, Sehun is on the edge, feeling as if he’s going to suffocate. He grabs the nearest movie and pops it into the DVD player without a second thought. It turns out that he has chosen Titanic, which appears to have been a grave mistake since both of them spend most of the movie sitting on opposite sides of the sofa, trying very hard to act as usual. That is, until Sehun starts to quietly sob when the ship begins to sink. Luhan giggles at this and Sehun throws a pillow in the boy’s face, smiling stupidly. 

In the end, Luhan makes them four bowls of buttered popcorn and they devour them all with an amazing enthusiasm while watching The Lion King. Later, somehow high on grease, they deem emptying Baekhyun’s not-so-secret beer stash a good idea. After that, everything becomes a blur.

 

Sehun wakes up in the morning with a piercing headache and feeling like a pregnant whale. It’s far too warm and it takes him a while to regain the sensation in his limbs. Once he finally manages to crack his eyes open and look around, he notices he’s lying on a bed in Luhan’s room with Luhan sprawled half on top of him. Somehow, he’s immediately reminded of Luhan’s disconcerting gaze. He stiffens, pushes Luhan off himself and hastily escapes to the bathroom.

He calms down a bit when, after fumbling with the shower knobs, he gets a face full of freezing cold water. He figures that he’s probably doing the thing he’s most known for among his friends, namely overthinking. It’s not as if Luhan was really acting any different. Yes, he might have looked at Sehun funny once or twice, but that’s no reason for Sehun to hyperventilate. He might have also been acting a bit secretive, but everyone has things they would like to keep just to themselves. And maybe, if only Sehun waits patiently, he will find out what Luhan has been hiding. 

 

During breakfast Luhan keeps rubbing at the corner of his eyes, yawning and smiling sleepily at Sehun from his plate of eggs and half-burnt toast. There is nothing to remind Sehun of the awkwardness and uneasiness that he felt anymore. He figures that maybe they will be fine now.

Later, when they are getting coffee at some tiny coffee shop next to Luhan’s block, they naturally fall back into their routine, laughing and talking as if they have known each other their whole lives. Sehun isn’t sure what prompts him, but at some point his thoughts turn to the first time they met up during lunch, and words pour out of his mouth on their own accord. “That time at the cafeteria...why did you ask me about Kris?”

Luhan looks up at him, eyes wide. There’s a moment of silence during which he fumbles with a spoon before saying, “There was no particular reason?”

“Oh really? It looked to me like you knew him. Is he someone from your past?” There’s anger in his voice that Sehun hasn’t even realized he’s been feeling. He fixes Luhan with a stare and watches the other drill a hole in the table with his gaze. Sehun can almost imagine the cogs turning in the Luhan’s brain but he’s convinced that his friend won’t be able to successfully lie to him. He knows that he hit the bull’s eye after all.

“Well...I knew someone who looked like him. They’re not the same person though,” Luhan retorts and looks at Sehun almost pleadingly. However, Sehun isn’t about to drop the topic just yet. “So how did you meet? When?”

“Uhm...the f-first time I...we..we were friends. It was in Japan before World War II.”

“Oh, so was there a second time then?”

Luhan looks down at his fingers, his eyebrows furrowed. 

“Yeah. In Poland, around the same time. He owned a restaurant I used to frequent.”

With every word Luhan utters, Sehun can feel the awkwardness seep back in. It’s almost like a fog that distorts his vision and puts imaginary distance between them. He knows he’s walking a thin line but it seems to him that Kris might be the source of all his problems. Hence, he ignores the alarms going off at the back of his mind and goes straight for the kill. “Did you sleep with him?”

“What?!” Luhan tries to sound shocked but Sehun can see the blush on his cheeks.

“You did, didn’t you? Is that why you’ve been acting so weird? Because you want to get back with him and I’m in the way?” 

Luhan stares at him for a few seconds, speechless with disbelief painted all over his face. He blinks and laughs, bitterness lacing his voice. “Get back with him? I told you he’s not the same person I used to know. And why on earth would I force myself to spend time with you if I didn’t want to? How much of a wanker can you be?!” Luhan is almost shouting towards the end and Sehun begins to panic just a bit. “Whatever. Think what you want,” Luhan pretty much spits out the last words and storms out of the coffee shop.

*

It seems that his good intentions aren’t working. Tension builds up steadily between him and Sehun, and explodes a day after Luhan thought they were finally working things out. He knows that he’s the one at fault for trying to fight what he feels. Still, Sehun’s accusing tone of voice sets his blood on fire and he’s through with being cautious.

They don’t go out of their way to avoid each other. They still talk during classes and occasionally meet up outside of uni. Nevertheless, their conversations are restrained and shallow since they are both determined to abstain from discussing their problems. Luhan thinks those meetings are rather pointless, and yet his feelings for Sehun just keep becoming stronger, making him all the more miserable. Sometimes he toys with the idea of being honest with Sehun but in the end he’s too afraid. He’d rather they became strangers than suffer together.

 

Three weeks into December the winter holidays start and Sehun goes back home for Christmas. Luhan is relieved, for it should be easier to gather his thoughts when he’s undisturbed, but Baekhyun has other plans. 

 

It’s four days after the classes end that Jongdae, Luhan’s second flatmate, comes back from his term-long exchange. Luhan isn’t sure if he should be happy, because Jongdae is the only person who manages to control Baekhyun, or terrified, as it means he’ll now have two people in the house who like to sing loudly in the middle of the night. Baekhyun decides it’s a stellar occasion and warrants for all of them to get drunk. Luhan is convinced that partying two days before Christmas must be on the verge of illegal but he’s been moping around so much that Baekhyun drags him to the club, ignoring Luhan’s feeble protests. 

Sometime after his fifth drink, a few people join them at their table. He recognizes Kris and Junmyeon, and is introduced to Jongin, who looks awfully similar to Atsuyoshi and, oh the irony, turns out to actually be Sehun’s best friend. Some things just don’t change, no matter how many years pass. He also catches a few other names, like Xiumin or Lay, but is too far gone to care. 

 

Luhan is nursing an umpteenth drink and watching Jongdae gesture excitedly, while talking to Xiumin through a heavy mist of cigarette smoke. He spent a few hours bumping into sweaty strangers on the dance floor and dancing in a way that could probably put even a stripper to shame. Right now though, he feels boneless and the club beat sounds more like an annoying buzzing in the background than proper music. 

He leans back against the round couch and tries to will the smoke to stop coiling up above him. Someone sits down next to him and he turns his head slowly to get a good look at the stranger. The moment Luhan realizes that it’s Kris, he starts laughing and stops only when Kris begins to look offended. Even through the haze of alcohol, Luhan can see that something must be up. He still remembers what Sehun told him so he isn’t surprised when he notices Junmyeon sitting opposite of them. He smirks and scoots closer to Kris. When the other boy starts flirting with him, he decides to indulge him. Sure, experience should have taught him that hooking up with Kris never ends well for him, but the irony of him being next to Luhan at the right time and place, spurs him on. Maybe Luhan is just that spiteful, working on making Sehun’s assumptions a reality. It’s all a bit confusing with smoke and alcohol cruising through his veins. 

He goes home with Kris that day.

*

There’s only a week left until the Christmas holidays but Sehun can’t will himself to sit still. Any minute spent without purpose seems to drag on forever, giving him ample time to think about Luhan and their disastrous spat.

At first, he considered apologizing; it seemed like the logical move. However, the longer he dwelled on it, the more he realized that him saying sorry won’t change much. One can only fix a broken friendship if one decides to talk honestly about what broke it. And Sehun might not mind pouring his heart out but he’s convinced that Luhan won’t reciprocate. 

His friends had noticed pretty quickly that Sehun wasn’t acting like his usual self. Still, no matter what they did, he always ended up brooding alone in his room. Jongin now tiptoes around him as if he’s afraid that any louder sound will unleash a storm, although he’s wrong, for Sehun is too tired, too resigned to bother with being angry. Yet at the same time there are too many emotions cramped inside of him that he’s unable to get rid of.

Something urges him to rummage through his closet. He throws out a beat-up pair of sneakers, finds a t-shirt he thought he had lost and takes out the spare, blank canvas and a box full of painting supplies he’d hidden at the back. Then he digs out his easel from under the bed and puts it in the middle of the room. 

It’s only the next day that he places the canvas on the easel, opens the bottle of turpentine and squeezes some paint onto the palette. Sehun picks up a brush and looks up at the canvas, slightly nervous. He slowly breathes in and out, forces himself to paint without thinking too much about what he wants the end product to be, and stops only when Jongin shouts that he should come eat dinner because Kyungsoo came over and made his favourite dish. 

 

He spends most of the winter holidays holed up in his room back home painting almost nonstop. His paintings are random, sometimes only an explosion of colours and vague shapes. He loses himself in trying to create new hues when he discovers that his thoughts and emotions align just right with each brush stroke that he makes. It seems to him as natural as breathing and he wonders why he couldn’t finish anything passable during his painting class.

*

He’s sitting in front of Junmyeon in the club, looking him straight in the eye. Only a small table separates them. There are people around them but they appear to him as shadows gliding across the walls. Junmyeon starts talking to him, his mouth opening almost lazily, but he can’t hear a thing. Then, out of the blue, he hears a buzzing in his ears that becomes a steady murmur. The volume raises and he makes out his Polish name. Panicking, he tries to talk to the other boy but the world around him blurs, the smoke covering every nook and cranny of the club.

When his vision clears up, he realizes that he’s standing behind a house made of straw and stones, next to a vast field of wheat. There’s a person with him that looks like what Junmyeon might have looked if he had been born Caucasian and were a few year older. Although the man is talking to him quickly in a hushed voice, it doesn’t hide his anger.

“It’s not a place for you to go to. No one is allowed to be there.”

Luhan feels as if he were a passive spectator trapped in someone else’s body, seeing what that person sees but unable to move or speak on his own accord. “No one is allowed to pray to the Old Gods either and yet so many people do,” Luhan answers with a defiance he doesn’t feel.

“The kings might have changed our religion but the people know better whom to fear.”

“Well, I don’t think The One Who Now Lies As a Pile of Stones will punish me if I get near him. I don’t care if you all go against the laws. You can believe in whoever you want to. I have only one God though and He isn’t a broken pillar with four faces,” Luhan says and braces himself for the slap he knows will come. The pain is sharp and spreads all over his cheek. He wakes up just as the man tells him, “You will pay for your recklessness.”

 

It becomes a regular thing. Every night Luhan dreams about his first life. The memories aren’t chronological. Sometimes he’s a small boy, barely able to form proper sentence. Other times, he’s a teenager, rebelling against everything and everyone. Every now and then, he goes back to dreaming about the poppy field, the hill and the pile of stones. Each time it happens, he feels a deep sadness, the kind that became his closest companion during the journey through his numerous lives. He knows he isn’t seeing the big picture because there must have been a reason for how he’d changed, almost overnight. 

 

Two weeks into the winter holidays he dreams about the poppy field again. He’s sitting in between tall stacks of hay with nothing but dry soil and occasional wheat kernels around him. He can feel tears trickling down his cheeks and his shoulders are trembling with the force of his sobbing. The world seems dark and unfriendly even with the blue sky and bright sun warming the ground. 

It seems like hours have passed before he calms down enough to stand up and walk steadily. His determination rises with every step he takes and soon he’s almost running. He slows down only when he reaches the familiar poppy field. The man’s words ring in his head. He has been told over and over again that The Ravine is the place where the Old Gods rest, a place ordinary people are forbidden to even look at. Almost everyone in the village still believed that, even though it has been nearly two centuries since Mieszko I baptized the country. 

Luhan climbs the hill and just as he’s passing a pile of stones, he forces himself to stop. In his memories he never pays them any attention but now he remembers that he had come to this place many times before. Hence, he’s convinced that since he is dreaming and he knows it, he can try and manipulate the dream.

He takes a deep breath and crouches down to get a better look at what is carved into the stones. At first, it appears to be a lot of random lines but soon he’s able to make out a hand, pieces of what might have been a face, wheat and clouds. Although he tries to touch the stones, the moment he feels the cold, rough surface under his fingers, he wakes up.

*

Sehun plops lifelessly onto the sofa in the living room and takes to admiring the white ceiling while Jongin goes through the pile of paintings Sehun brought back. He’s jittery and doesn’t really trust himself not to cry if he notices any traces of disappointment on his flatmate’s face.

For a while the flat is completely silent. The only thing Sehun can hear is the sound of water in the heating’s pipes and an occasional car passing by. Finally, curiosity gets the better of him and he shyly peeks at Jongin from under his fringe. His friend chooses the same moment to turn around and exclaim, “Mate, I don’t know what happened but this is amazing!”

He grins and blushes. Jongin can be a cunt but when he compliments you, you can be sure he means it.

“Really? I spent a small fortune on all the painting supplies.”

Jongin grins back at him and carefully puts the paintings one on top of the other. 

“I can imagine. This is a bloody mountain of canvas and paint. Miracle that your parents let you do that in the first place, though,” Jongin says and looks at Sehun with a slightly more serious expression. “So what are you gonna do now?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you clearly must be thinking painting’s your destined occupation or something. Are you gonna take any classes on it? You know majoring in theoretical arts wasn’t really your brightest idea anyway.”

“Yeah...” Sehun utters and starts picking at the seams of his jeans. “Actually, I’ve been thinking ‘bout switching my degrees...It’s just-well...you know how I fucked up that basic painting class. It won’t be that easy now. I-I’m not sure what to do, to be honest.” 

He sighs and leans back against the sofa. Jongin looks at him silently for what seems like an eternity before he speaks up again, “Just keep painting. You got a lot of paintings already that prove how good you are. I’m certain if you show them to your tutor, he’ll let you change majors.”

Sehun nods. It’s worth a try anyway.

 

The new term starts on Thursday. It’s even more depressing outside than it was in November, since the snow is melting and the city is going back to being grey and dirty. Still, that isn’t the reason why Sehun is feeling blue. The last term is short, barely two months long, so the timetable always stays the same as it was the previous term. That means his first class is the dance class, with Luhan. 

Painting helped him to collect his thoughts and rid him of some of the anger. However, he can’t help but fear that they had crossed a certain line in their relationship, that even if he tries, nothing will ever change.

He steps inside the 601 and in seconds Luhan is right next to him, asking him how his holidays went. There’s a small smile tugging at the corner of Luhan’s lips. It’s surreal, like a scene from some cheesy movie. Still, Sehun instantly forgets how ugly the world outside the classroom actually is. 

 

For a week everything seems to be perfect. He almost manages to fool himself into thinking that their friendship has been fixed. Nevertheless, all it takes for Sehun to bury himself back in the world of sleek brushes and oily paint, is Jongin’s casual remark about Jongdae and the party he went to. Sehun can barely believe his ears when his flatmate tells him how Luhan and Kris had hooked up and left together sometime after 2 a.m. He nearly crushes the paper cup that he’s holding in a fit of rage. Don’t want to get back with him? And Sehun’s not in the way? Clearly, Luhan had lied to him that day.

*

He continued to meet up with Kris for about a week. It was easy to stop overanalysing his every move and to go with the flow. It didn’t hurt either that Luhan had experience in muffling his insecurities through sex. He was convinced that he could erase Sehun from his mind this way. However, it was too good to be true, because Luhan felt nothing for Kris, not even that longing or bizarre attraction he used to feel in his past lives.

The sex was good but left him numb. The sensation was akin to a part of his heart having been chipped away. In the end, instead of helping him get over Sehun, Kris made him feel worse. The affair finished just as abruptly as it had started, but Luhan didn’t think Kris got hurt by that - they were both aware that they were merely using each other for sex.

 

The dreams have become more vivid and have started to haunt him with increased ferocity ever since Sehun came back. They don’t interfere with his daily life but subconsciously he’s on edge, waiting for something to happen, because he still has no idea what really took place in his first life. Without knowing that, he can’t be sure if he will live to see tomorrow. For all Luhan knows, he could very well die walking back home from uni.

 

On Friday, right after he finishes his last class, he holes himself up in the uni library, braced with the knowledge of the name of the country of his birth in and general information about the gods his people used to worship. Luhan spends several hours going through various books, encyclopedias and journals, before he finally finds a picture of a familiar stone sculpture. He lets its name slowly roll off his tongue, Świętowit, The God with Four Faces, The Great One.

 

He has a dream later that day. He’s standing at the edge of the hill, gazing at the ravine. There isn't even a single blade of grass to be spotted, only stones of different shapes and sizes. It’s a stark contrast to the rest of the surroundings which are full of greenery and life. 

He watches a few pebbles tumble down the steep slope, takes a deep breath and jumps. Seconds before he hits the ground, he hears an illegible shout. 

Luhan wakes up to an incessant ringing in his ears, covered in sweat. It takes him a while to calm down. Once he finally stops trembling, the irritating sounds stop and the memories of the fall assault his senses. He remembers four emotionless faces looking down at him from atop the hill and a voice chanting his name, telling him that he committed a grave sin.

*

If it weren’t for the fact that there’s barely a month and a half left until the end of the year, Sehun would skip the Monday dance class. He doesn’t trust himself to act normal around Luhan anymore. He barely slept the night after he found out about Luhan and Kris, rolling from one side of bed to the other and replaying Jongin’s words over and over in his head.

He purposefully gets to class barely on time. He’s grateful that instead of a break, they spend some time at the end of the class to discuss their final dance performance. Luhan goes to ask the teacher something right after they are done and Sehun uses the opportunity to escape. Still, the boy manages to catch up to him just as Sehun is leaving the building.

“Hey! Are you okay?” Luhan says and smiles at him shyly. Sehun feels as if someone were trying to turn his intestines inside out. He stops walking but makes no attempt at answering the boy.

“Sehun? Did something happen?” 

A few of the last students scurry past them. Since there are no more classes at this hour, an almost eerie silence falls around them, punctuated only by the sound of flickering light bulbs. Luhan’s face grows increasingly concerned as Sehun continues to fix him with a cold stare. 

“What is it? Say something!”

There’s a vile, slimy thing clogging his pores and the bitter laughter that bursts forth from his mouth feels almost like bile. It’s been ages since Sehun reacted to anything this way.

“What is it? Are you really asking me this? You lied to me. You slept with Kris just three weeks ago. And that’s not all. I’ve never asked you about your past lives. I thought, if you wanted to talk about them, you’d tell me on your own accord, but you kept everything to yourself. And that’s fine, maybe you hate your past. But-but why did you lie about Kris too? Why don’t you trust me?! Not even a bit! You…” Sehun pauses, not sure how to continue.

“I...what? I didn’t lie to you. I never would. Yes, I did sleep with him, I never denied that, but you don’t understand-”

“What don’t I understand?” Sehun cuts in angrily. 

“I don’t talk about my past for a reason. I wasn’t even sure what was happening and why it was happening until recently! Why would I ever start talking about things I don’t understand? I have no feelings for Kris, I never did. It was always you, ever since I met you in one of my past lives. Everyone else was just a substitute…I didn’t want to say it ‘cause…I-I’ve been cursed. This never ending circle of life is my punishment. How am I to know when I’ll die again?! I…I couldn’t just tell you I love you,” Luhan whispers the last few words. His hands are trembling and his eyes are slightly wet. Sehun takes a step towards him but halts abruptly. It’s a turn of events he did not expect.

“You love me?” 

A lone tear falls down Luhan’s cheeks while he says, “Yes.” 

“I’m sorry I-” Sehun stops, the words stuck in his throat almost painfully. “I don’t know what to say. I…I need to think about this.”

Luhan nods slowly and looks away from Sehun. 

“I understand. I’m sorry I kept all of this from you. I’ll go now.”

Sehun watches him walk away, feeling numb in the worst of ways. With every step Luhan takes, it seems to him as if his world were collapsing, one invisible wall at a time. It’s too much to stomach all at once. He doesn’t even care about Luhan’s past lives now. Somehow, even though it should have been obvious, Sehun had forgotten about the fact that Luhan died many times before and will eventually die again. 

 

He comes back home well past midnight. The lights in the flat are off and he can hear music coming softly from Jongin’s room. He takes off his shoes and coat as quietly as he can and tiptoes towards his room. Once he’s inside, he sits down in front of the empty easel and lets the muffled sound of traffic lull him to sleep.

He wakes up to a loud bang and realizes that he had fallen onto the floor. He blinks sleepily at the alarm clock standing on his desk until his vision clears. It’s four in the morning and his room is bathed in washed out greys. He sits upright and slowly drags a blank canvas from under the pile he keeps under his bed. He’s feeling a bit dizzy, his limbs heavier than usual and much more uncoordinated. With a bit of effort, he places the canvas securely on the easel and leans against the bed to stare at the stark whiteness. His thoughts still resemble a battlefield, scattered over a limitless space full of despair and confusion. For a moment he wishes he could make a pyre and reduce them to ash but the idea seems so ridiculous to him that he laughs it off. Then, he sighs, sweeps his bangs to the side and reaches for the palette. He squeezes some black and white paint onto it and grabs the closest brush. He stops painting when the sun begins to peek through the blinds. Without really looking at the finished picture, he climbs into his bed and burrows his head under the duvet.

 

He tries to be level-headed about it. Yes, he has absolutely no idea what Luhan really means to him. And yes, it’s sort of scary, having someone else lay their feelings in front him. He’s sure that he would never want to make himself that vulnerable. Still, it’s not Luhan’s fault and treating him any differently would not be unfair. 

Sehun groans and kicks the wall. He’s been pacing back and forth in the living room for at least an hour. Actually, he has been doing it regularly for the past three days. He feels a different kind of urgency today though, as it is already Thursday and that means he will see Luhan in under two hours, whether he wants to or not. 

Resigned, he lies down on the floor and focuses his eyes on the back of the sofa. When he notices a few loose threads sticking from one of the sofa seams, he slides closer and starts carelessly picking at them. The sound of the ticking clock is like thunder in the empty flat and with each passing second the memory of Luhan’s trembling hands and sad face becomes more and more vivid. He hastily rolls onto his stomach to divert his attention, but the image is permanently burned into his retinas. 

 

For some reason, he’s been expecting Luhan to have changed drastically during the few days that they haven’t seen each other. Of course, Luhan looks the same as always, down to his black pair of converse that have seen better days. Sehun nearly wants to applaud himself; he always knew that he had a flair for dramatics. 

 

He catches sight of Luhan loitering around at the back of the classroom after the class while he’s changing his shoes. He walks up to the boy while telling himself to act natural. There’s a moment of awkward silence before Sehun forces himself to speak. “Do you want to practice the performance for the finals?”

Luhan blinks slowly, as if he were processing what Sehun has just told him, but doesn’t answer. Instead, he turns his full attention to admiring his sneakers. Sehun feels the familiar nervousness seep back into his system and thinks that maybe that wasn’t the right thing to begin a conversation with. Just as he’s about to really freak out, Luhan finally looks at him, or rather at his cheek but it’s a start, and says yes. 

 

The moment the music starts playing, he heaves a sigh of contentment and slowly lets his muscles relax. By the time he’s done dancing, the stress has ebbed away, leaving behind a pleasant buzz of tiredness. He smiles widely at Luhan who grins back at him. It’s enough to tell him that he did great. 

He leans against one of the mirrors and watches Luhan move with confidence that he can never imitate. Sometimes he thinks that the other boy was born to dance, as he makes even the most complicated moves look effortless. Sehun tilts his head to the side and stares transfixed at the beads of sweat sliding down Luhan’s neck. His eyes go lower, tracing the curve of Luhan’s shoulders and stopping abruptly when they reach the boy’s bony wrists. It’s as if something short circuits in Sehun’s brain. His thoughts start running amok, toppling each other in panic and his throat feels uncomfortably dry, almost like sandpaper. He reaches blindly for his bottle of water and gulps half of it down in a desperate attempt to quench the sudden thirst. 

 

Sehun isn’t sure what he’s trying to prove when he asks Luhan to get coffee with him later that day. He keeps absent-mindedly touching Luhan and stealing glances at him whenever he gets the chance. He is pretty sure he’s making Luhan really uneasy, seeing as the other boy keeps flinching away from him and fidgeting in his seat. The thing is that Sehun just cannot stop himself. Somehow, Luhan has become like a magnet – compelling Sehun to get as close to the boy as he can.

*

He unbuttons his coat and leans against the cold wall in the hallway. His body is sluggish and his head is throbbing. He shoos Baekhyun away when the boy peeks his head out of his room, looking concerned. Luhan takes a few deep breaths, kicks off his shoes and quickly disappears inside of his room, his coat still on. He looks around in the darkness and hides his head in his hands, defeated. The headache doesn’t cease and his thoughts get even more frantic, flooding his mind at a record speed.

Luhan grabs his phone and keys and puts on his shoes. He shouts from the hallway that he’ll be late and gets out of the flat. 

 

The sound of door slamming behind him brings him back to reality. It’s nearing midnight and it’s a Thursday to boot, meaning most of his friends won’t be happy if he shows up unannounced. He doesn’t want to go back home though, as even his room feels strangely suffocating. Everywhere he looks, he can see Sehun’s bright smile. No matter what he tries to do, his skin still burns from the intensity of Sehun’s stare. He almost regrets his spontaneous confessions. Luhan wanted a resolution and not for Sehun to act as if nothing has happened. All the accidental touching the other boy has been subjecting him to makes every minute they spend together an elaborate form of torture as well.

 

He rings the doorbell and waits patiently for the familiar sound of footsteps, while he gazes at his breath coming out in white puffs and dissipating into thin air. 

Kris opens the door, looking as if he had just woken up. His hair is dishevelled and he’s only wearing a sweatshirt and boxers. He doesn’t seem surprised at Luhan’s sudden visit as he yawns and wordlessly motions for Luhan to step inside.

Once the door closes, Luhan carelessly shoves Kris against the nearest wall and tries to kiss him. Kris stands still for a short while, not moving his lips but not pulling away either. Luhan clenches his fists and slowly takes a step back, eyeing the other boy angrily.

“Do you have any smokes?” he spits out, his muscles tense and a storm of conflicting emotions brewing under his skin. Kris looks at him with pity, sighs and puts on a jacket. Then, he ushers Luhan towards the balcony and takes out a pack of cigarettes. They light them in silence, Kris looking ahead into the darkness and Luhan staring at the way the boy’s fingers move every time he takes a drag. 

For a brief moment Luhan entertains the idea of telling Kris exactly what is bothering him. He thinks about how Sehun’s eyebrows furrow every time he gets confused and his habit of constantly licking his lips. The cigarette ash almost burns Luhan’s finger at that moment and he curses under his breath. Kris tilts his head to look at him and Luhan decides that certain things are better left unsaid. 

“Why did you sleep with me?”

Kris raises an eyebrow at him but Luhan knows the boy has understood what he meant. 

“Why did you sleep with me then? You have Sehun, don’t you?”

Luhan gapes at him, temporarily speechless. Kris puffs out the cigarette smoke and laughs. “I know you and I know him, and you’ve been both acting weird at the same time. It doesn’t take a genius to figure something’s up.”

“Well, I asked you the question first.”

Kris smiles awkwardly and looks away from him. He stubs out his cigarette and says, “What did Sehun tell you?”

“That you scared Junmyeon away with your absolute lack of fashion sense?”

For a moment the balcony is silent, the world around them muted by the cold wind and pitch-black sky. Luhan watches fascinated, as Kris’ smile turns lopsided.

“That wasn’t the reason why he rejected me. He just likes his heterosexuality a bit too much so when things got serious, he ran away. That’s all.”

“Did you manage to at least kiss him?”

Kris smirks and answers, amusement lacing his voice, “Actually, I even slept with him once. Well, he was pretty wasted then but he remembered enough afterwards to avoid me like the plague.” He takes two more cigarettes out of the pack in his jacket and gives one to Luhan. They smoke without speaking for a few minutes before Kris fixes him with a stare and asks, “So what about Sehun?”

Luhan thinks about all the times he met Kris in the past and the first time he fell in love with Sehun, and decides that no matter how much he wants to rant to the other boy about all of his insanely bad life choices, there is no way he can make the story sound believable. “I confessed to him and he’s acting like nothing happened. It’s driving me mad.”

Kris giggle snorts at him and Luhan almost wants to feel offended, except that Kris has just giggled and that is extraordinary enough to render anyone speechless. 

“Sehun can be a bit dumb sometimes. You should help him.”

“Help him with what?” 

“With realizing he likes you too, of course.” Kris says it so matter-of-factly that Luhan starts feeling a bit creeped out. He never got the impression that Kris and Sehun were particularly close and all this insight the other boy is exhibiting is downright unnerving. 

“And how do you propose I do it? Molest him after class?” 

Kris opens the balcony door and pushes Luhan inside the warm flat, laughing. “Whatever floats your boat. It might just work, you know. Telling him once that you like him won’t have any effect. You need to drill it into his thick skull.”

 

They don’t really talk much afterwards. Luhan borrows some of Kris’ clothes and makes himself comfortable on the couch in the living room. He falls asleep to the humming of the wind outside and the ticking of the antique clock that Kris keeps in the hallway.

*

Sehun knows instantly that something is very, very wrong. Luhan meets him in front of the cinema on Sunday just like they had agreed the day before, but his smile is forced and he seems nervous. He doesn’t relax during the movie either and Sehun spends most of it trying to figure out how to salvage the situation. Finally, at the end of his wits, he grabs Luhan’s hand and entangles their fingers together. It makes Luhan jump in his seat and look at Sehun with eyes wide. Sehun leans gingerly towards him and whispers, “Are you okay?” Luhan nods and quickly looks back at the screen.

 

The atmosphere gets so thick with tension once they’re out of the cinema that Sehun thinks he could probably cut it with a knife. Luhan refuses to look at him and when they get inside the tube, he starts playing with his phone. Time seems to stand still as Sehun restlessly drums his fingers against his thighs. 

When Luhan gets off at Sehun’s stop, Sehun freaks out. Nothing seems to be making even the slightest sense today. The last few months have been enough of a rollercoaster and he would really like for all the drama to come to an end.

Luhan stops at the tube exit and looks at Sehun with a serious expression. Immediately, Sehun starts mentally counting from ten to one.

“I don’t want to rush you but-” Luhan stops mid-sentence and shakes his head. “No, that’s not true. I’m sick and tired of you acting like I never told you I like you. I have had enough of wondering what the hell you’re thinking. I have enough of everything right now. If you don’t have any feelings for me, just reject me so I can move on. Until you’re able to finally do something, I don’t want to meet with you.”

Sehun’s mind decides to go blank the exact same moment that Luhan finishes talking. Luhan groans at his lack of response and stalks off in a huff.

 

It only dawns on Sehun what has really happened when Luhan refuses to acknowledge his presence all throughout the Monday dance class. It affects him much more than he expected and he spends the next day wallowing in misery and consequently pissing Jongin off. 

On Friday his flatmate proclaims that he’s ready to sacrifice him to the devil on a pyre made of his paintings. Sehun takes a moment to consider his offer but in the end caves in and spends an hour sobbing to Jongin on the sofa. 

“So another guy tells you he wants to tap you and instead of running away screaming, like you should, being supposedly all straight and shit, you start staring and manhandling him?” Jongin raises his eyebrow in an exaggerated fashion for emphasis and continues. “And then, when said guy gets pissed off at your ridiculous antics, you get depressed ‘cause you can’t be all over him anymore. Did I get it right?”

“What?! No!”

Jongin pats Sehun on the back and nods. “I see. I see. So I’m right. Well, imagine it was me we were talking about and not Luhan. Would you be moping right now?”

Sehun looks at his friend, scandalized.

“Exactly. So the conclusion is simple. You, my friend, are flamingly gay and whipped,” Jongin says with a wide smile and leaves Sehun gaping at the ceiling in shock.

*

It gets a bit easier to breathe once Luhan begins to ignore Sehun. It still hurts and he still thinks about the other boy, however, he can now finally focus on making sure that he doesn’t screw up the upcoming exams. On the downside, it turns out that it also means that the nightmares come back.

The dreams repeat themselves, not even one of them is new. Still, there is something in them that starts to irk Luhan, something that seems overtly familiar, but in a bad way. 

It takes him a while to piece everything together but after a week of recurring dreams, memories rush back to him, leaving him flabbergasted. It’s simple, really. He realizes that the reason he committed suicide in his first life was because of a broken heart. He laughs out loud at the irony. The truth is, that after all he went through, he knows that a stupid rejection isn’t worth dying for.

*

Sehun continues to brood for a few more days but Jongin’s incessant death glares prompt him to action. He isn’t sure if what he feels towards Luhan is really love. Still, no other explanation makes even remotely as much sense so he resolves to stop overanalysing his emotions, and just go with the flow. He thus texts Luhan on Wednesday to tell him to wait for him after class, and spends the whole night tossing and turning, only to fall asleep a mere four hours before his alarm clock goes off. By the time he leaves for uni, he’s tired and a bundle of nerves.

 

He waits until everyone has left, while Luhan drills imaginary holes into his back from the opposite side of the classroom. He takes a few deep breaths and tries to imagine Jongin cheering him on. He stifles a giggle and notices that his hands have stopped shaking. Relieved, he turns around, crosses the classroom and sits down next to Luhan, close enough that their knees bump together. Luhan looks up at him then, and Sehun realizes with awe that he could easily count Luhan’s eyelashes from this distance. 

They stare at each other, until Luhan clears his throat and says, “So what is it that you wanted to tell me?” 

Sehun’s gaze automatically falls onto Luhan’s lips and he swallows. Suddenly, his throat becomes as dry as sandpaper again, and the only way that he can think of solving this problem is to lean even closer to Luhan. Their noses brush and Sehun can feel Luhan’s shaky breath on his face. Out of habit, he licks his lower lip. There’s a palpable shift in the atmosphere and Sehun’s heart seems to kick-start, pumping his blood so quickly that he can hear it rushing in his ears. 

They move at the same time. To Sehun, it seems to happen both too quickly and too slowly. When they finally kiss, it’s as if a dam has burst and a strong wave of emotions knocks his breath away. He pushes Luhan to the floor and hovers over him for a second, taking in his flushed cheeks and dazed eyes. Before he can do anything else, Luhan grabs him by the shirt and pulls Sehun on top of himself, kissing him so passionately that all thoughts fly out of Sehun’s mind.

*

He dreams about the stony ravine again. He passes the pile of stones, looks down at the falling pebbles and jumps. The blood covers every inch of the ground and the pain clouds his senses. Through the haze he hears his name shouted angrily, sees the four solemn faces and promptly blacks out.

When he comes to, he finds himself in a room, covered with mirrors. He gets up from the floor and notices Sehun standing right next to him. He turns towards him and is about to speak up when the other boy starts to frantically look around and scream out Luhan’s name. He feels his pace quicken and crouches down, hiding his head in between his knees. Once he finally hears Sehun go still, he hesitantly looks up. 

The mirrors reflect the room with only Sehun in it.

 

Luhan opens his eyes, breathing heavily. Sehun is lying next to him sleeping, one of his arms splayed haphazardly across Luhan’s stomach. He heaves a relieved sigh and smiles, snuggling closer to him. They might have been together for a while now but somehow it never ceases to amaze Luhan that Sehun is really all his. 

He tries to fall asleep again after noticing it’s barely five in the morning, but the dream keeps coming back to him. Does it hold any meaning? Is someone trying to tell him something? It seems like forever since the last time he dreamed about that particular period of his life and it doesn’t escape his attention that this time the dream was worryingly different. The truth is that he doesn’t wish for any further lives. For the first time, he feels that he has everything he has ever wanted and it’s amazing, it’s-

Luhan pauses. He listens to Sehun’s steady breathing and blinks back the tears. Does it mean it’s the end now?

Sehun chooses this moment to wake up and smile sleepily at him. 

 

Later that day, Luhan’s thoughts stir back to the dream. He feels a bit sad but figures that it’s okay. It’s okay if this is the end. It’s okay if the seemingly never-ending circle of rebirth was supposed to be a crash course in life. It’s okay even if he has a few days left at best. It was worth it and he could continue dying the most painful of deaths without a second thought if it meant that he would have Sehun for himself again.

*

Sehun tugs at his tie. He’s been trying to make it look presentable for at least twenty minutes, so far without any success. He groans and plops onto a couch. Jongin enters the room a moment later and throws a disgusted stare Sehun’s way.

“I see the youngest painter to ever have his work exhibited in such a famous gallery can’t do his tie to save his life.”

“Jongin, please spare me.”

His friend rolls his eyes and begins to fiddle with Sehun’s tie. 

“Tell me you at least got someone to accompany you. Someone that isn’t me,” Jongin says, his tone almost pleading. Sehun smiles, grabs his phone and shows him his recent messages. Jongin blinks and looks at Sehun slowly as if he were seeing him for the first time in his life. “And one would have thought your taste would be impeccable, with you having dated Luhan for so long and shit.” 

There’s a moment of awkward silence when Sehun swears that his lungs are threatening to collapse. Luhan’s face flashes in his mind and he looks back at his phone to distract himself. He scrolls through his photo gallery, giggles and says, “I know he seemed a bit crazy at first but Chanyeol isn’t actually that bad.”

*

“I’m waiting and I know that I will see you once again,  
I trust and I know that I won’t drown in bitter wine,  
Now that I’m no longer, no longer all alone,  
It’s easier for me to live.”

(“Lato jak ze snu” Beata Kozidrak)


End file.
